
room 

^Bardeen 

Session 


Single 




COPYRIGHT DEPOSITS 









♦ 




I 











































1 A Single Session 


AND OTHER 


STORIES ABOUT SCHOOLS 


BY 

C. W. BARDEEN / 

Editor of the School Bulletin 



Copyright, 1916, by C. W. Bardeen 





OCT 22 1917 

©CI.A477.156 v 




CONTENTS 

PAGE 

A single sessiop. 9 

The vanished check 37 

Eleven to one 77 

The poisoned pen 115 

Plot and counterplot 145 

The face that followed 169 


(v) 







I 















0 




























A SINGLE SESSION 









































A SINGLE SESSION 


I 

Mr. Mallory had spent Saturday fishing 
and had good luck. The lunch he took 
with him went to the spot, and he got an 
unexpectedly satisfactory supper at a 
country hotel, so when he arrived at the 
board meeting, a few minutes late, he 
bubbled over with enthusiasm. 

“Is there anything you would like to 
bring before us?” the president asked. 

“Yes, there is,” he replied. “During 
Easter vacation I visited the exhibit of 
historical material in Boston, and I saw 
a number of things we need. In the grades 
we have the Peerless maps, which are all 
right, but we have them only lettered. 

( 9 ) 


10 


A SINGLE SESSION 


The same maps are published also without 
lettering, and it would make our geography 
work much more effective to have both 
sets in each room, drilling today .upon the 
maps with letters and tomorrow on the 
maps without, so that the contour itself 
will suggest the names. 

“Then we should have in the high school 
at least one set of the Debes physical 
maps: they are really wonderful. And we 
need the Bretschneider historical charts 
and the Cybulski pictures of Greece and 
Rome, and some other material. I have 
the list here. It foots up three hundred 
and fifty dollars, and I should like to order 
it at once.” 

“I don’t know whether we ought to put 
three hundred and fifty dollars into maps,” 
suggested one member. 

“You don’t have to know: you pay me 


A SINGLE SESSION 


11 


for knowing,’ ’ replied Mr. Mallory. He 
never could understand why principals 
knuckled down to their boards as some do. 
He always looked upon the members as 
good comrades, all working together for 
the interests of the school, with full con- 
fidence in one another, and naturally un- 
der his leadership. But someway tonight 
there seemed a sort of constraint in the 
room, of which he was conscious but for 
which he could not account. 

“You might make good use of these maps 
while you were here,” suggested another, 
“but whoever succeeds you might let them 
lie in the garret.” 

“I expect to be here long enough to wear 
these maps out,” Mr. Mallory replied 
lightly. “Unless, of course, you turn me 
out,” he added. This was a joke; he knew 
he was sure of his place as long as he wanted 


12 


A SINGLE SESSION 


it. But somehow the joke did not seem 
to take. Manifestly something was wrong. 
He wondered what it was. The members 
looked at one another, and the president 
said, “Perhaps you would like to read this 
petition.” 

II 

It was on a sheet of school stationery, 
dated the day before, and reading thus: 

“We, the entire body of assistant teach- 
ers in the union school, unite in petition- 
ing your honorable board to remove Mr. 
Mallory as principal at the earliest possible 
moment. His conduct toward us has 
made it impossible to continue under his 
control.” 

Mr. Mallory could not believe his eyes. 
It was like thunder out of a clear sky. 
At first he thought it must be another 
joke, but as he glanced about the room 


A SINGLE SESSION 


13 


he saw that every face was sober. Besides, 
the petition was signed by every teacher, 
with especially distinct and firm signa- 
tures. 

Adelaide Filmore. Two years ago he 
had found it a struggle to prevent her 
being dropped. She was past fifty, her 
scholarship was of the boarding school, 
she was not interested in new methods, 
she would not keep track of the changes 
in the regents syllabus. All this he ad- 
mitted, but he argued that the school 
needed her because she was so thoroughly 
the gentlewoman; there was a propriety 
and fitness and artistic touch in all she said 
and did and thought and wore; every girl 
in school grew up more of a lady because 
of her. He had prevailed; and to ensure 
her continuance he had himself coached 
Mrs. Filmore’s classes and brought them 


14 


A SINGLE SESSION 


up to preparation for examinations. She 
did not know all he had done for her but 
she knew something of it and had professed 
herself grateful. Yet she had signed this 
petition for his removal. 

Edna Hobbs. When his eighth grade 
teacher had given out through nervous 
exhaustion, Mr. Appleton had said to him : 
“Miss Hobbs might take that place. She 
is unpolished, uncouth, clumsy, not always 
grammatical, masculine and proud of it, 
affecting mannish attire; she came in here 
once chewing gum — at first sight you will 
think her impossible. The principal of 
the normal where she was graduated said 
frankly he could not be responsible for 
placing her. But she is physically a per- 
fect animal, with abounding health and 
strength and vigor, just the one to follow 
the anaemic woman who has broken down. 


A SINGLE SESSION 


15 


I believe she has capabilities and can be 
made reasonably conventional. If you 
can start her right she will some day be 
principal of a larger school than yours, 
at a bigger salary. Suppose you see her 
and judge whether you want to under- 
take it.” 

He had called on her. She had been so 
frequently rejected that she met him 
reluctantly, almost resentfully. But what 
he wanted for this place above all else was 
power, force, vigor, and these she had in 
abundance. He not only engaged her 
but took her back with him and kept her 
at his home over Sunday, so that she might 
enter upon her work buttressed by the 
suggestions he could give her. So she 
began with some confidence, and though 
the pupils at first ridiculed her, before the 
week was ended she got hold of them, and 


16 


A SINGLE SESSION 


now they swore by her. She had a great 
deal to learn, but she was keen to catch a 
hint, and though at first she was inclined 
to resent criticism she had profited by it 
so often that now she asked for it. She 
was recognized as the most valuable of 
the grade teachers. She must know that 
she owed it to him, yet here she had signed 
this petition against him: in fact he was 
pretty sure she drew it up and circulated it. 

Chloe Nichols , his own little Chloe 
Nichols, his pupil at Lunenburg. Why, 
Chloe seemed almost a daughter to him. 
When her father died he had helped her 
mother settle the estate and had piloted 
her through numberless difficulties into 
comparative comfort. Chloe had always 
come to him for advice. He had chosen 
her normal school for her and taken her 
there when she went, himself looking after 


A SINGLE SESSION 


17 


her boarding-place and introducing her. 
When she was graduated he had brought 
her here at once, and had seen that her 
work was made easy and pleasant. Chloe 
Nichols sign a petition against him! It 
was incredible. 

And so he went down the list. There 
was not a teacher there whom he did not 
personally like and whom he had not per- 
sonally befriended. He was a kindly man 
and forcible, able to accomplish things. 
When his teachers were perplexed they 
had come to him and he had helped them. 
Some of them he had criticized, all of them 
probably, but always by themselves and 
with assurance that their general work 
was excellent. Never had he parted from 
an interview with any teacher here except 
with a full look in the eyes and a mutual 


18 


A SINGLE SESSION 


recognition of friendliness. Yet they had 
all petitioned for his removal. 

Ill 

He was so absorbed in this bitter re- 
flection that he forgot that the eyes of the 
board were upon him until the president 
asked: “That petition seems to surprise 
you?” 

“Naturally,” he replied, calling himself 
together. “But I suppose one should 
never be astonished at the working of 
women’s minds. We had a little disagree- 
ment last night about single sessions: that 
is all. They will forget it by Monday. 
But it is certainly amazing that they 
should have given their anger such form.” 

“I am afraid it is not a temporary out- 
burst, Mr. Mallory,” the president con- 
tinued. “They seemed very determined.” 

“It is not the first time they have com- 


A SINGLE SESSION 


19 


plained of you,” said another member. 
“They all feel you are arbitrary, if not 
tyrannical.” 

Mr. Mallory laughed. “There can be 
but one head to a school,” he replied, 
“and I have never let it be questioned that 
I was it, but I do not believe any one of 
them can point to an instance where I was 
arbitrary or tyrannical.” 

“How about your refusing to let them 
have single sessions?” 

“I couldn’t refuse it, any more than I 
could grant it. That is a matter entirely 
in your hands. What they asked was 
that I should recommend it to you. I 
could not conscientiously do that, and I 
told them why.” 

“Suppose we grant it then, you won’t 
protest?” 

“Certainly not; the law puts school reg- 


20 


A SINGLE SESSION 


ulations into your hands. I should hope 
however that before taking action you 
would let me present my objections to it, 
that you might consider both sides.” 

“In other words, we don’t need to know; 
we pay you to know,” remarked the mem- 
ber who had objected to the maps. 

IV 

“The matter has gone so far, Mr. Mal- 
lory, that I am afraid we must ask you to 
resign,” said the president. 

Mr. Mallory suddenly grew six inches 
taller. “Do you really mean that, Mr. 
Thayer?” 

“I certainly do. When fourteen teachers 
are unanimous against him a principal’s 
usefulness has terminated. We ask you 
to hand in your resignation at once. Do 
you consent?” 


A SINGLE SESSION 


21 


“Not on your life,” exclaimed Mr. 
Mallory. 

“Suppose we insist?” 

“I shall still refuse. I have a written 
contract to be principal of this school to 
the end of the year, and I shall be principal 
to the end of the year.” 

“You forget that we have some rights 
in this matter.” 

“Not the slightest. You can remove 
me only for cause that the regents of the 
university will find sufficient.” 

“Is it not sufficient cause that your 
teachers unanimously ask for your re- 
moval?” 

“By no means, any more than if you 
thought me incompetent it would be 
* sufficient reason for you to reappoint me 
at the end of the year because they unani- 
mously asked it. The principal is not 


22 


A SINGLE SESSION 


elected by the assistant teachers: he is 
appointed by you.” 

“And he is dismissed by us.” 

“Not while he is under contract, without 
reason that will stand before a court.” 

“Your work would be very difficult 
with teachers and board against you.” 

“We have a pretty good education law 
in this state, and it takes care of a teacher 
who is opposed only by personal whims.” 

“Ajax defying the lightning. I like 
your courage but damn your discretion. 
Do you still refuse to resign?” 

“I certainly do.” 

“Then the board will go into executive 
session. You will please retire. We will 
send word to your boarding-place what 
action we take.” 

V 

As Mr. Mallory walked down the street 
he saw a lawyer’s office lighted and went 


A SINGLE SESSION 


23 


in. He asked to look at the court calendar 
and ho found that Judge Fellows was 
holding court at Ipswich. Then he re- 
membered reading in the afternoon news- 
paper of a trial before him which did not 
finish Saturday and was to go on Monday 
morning. Undoubtedly the judge would 
remain in Ipswich over night. He looked 
at his watch. By running he could catch 
the 8:14 to Ipswich, and there was an early 
train back. He knew how the judge had 
helped out Mr. Tracy at Sterling and he 
caught the train. 

He got back at 10:39, found at home the 
expected notice of dismissal, went at once 
to Mr. Thayer’s house, and insisted upon 
seeing him. Mr. Thayer had little of the 
dignity of the president of the board when 
he finally came to the door with trousers 
barely drawn on. “It is of no use for you 


24 


A SINGLE SESSION 


to argue the matter,” he exclaimed, an- 
grily; “our minds are made up, and our 
action is irrevocable.” 

“I have not the slightest intention of 
arguing the matter,” Mr. Mallory re- 
plied, handing him a legal document. 
“I serve upon you an injunction by Judge 
Fellows, returnable next Saturday. Till 
then you can not interfere with me.” 

VI 

It is not easy to walk up to a school of 
hostile teachers and pupils, but Mr. Mal- 
lory recognized no unusual condition and 
greeted everybody as though nothing had 
happened. The teachers showed the re- 
sentment always felt against one we have 
injured, and some of them refused even 
to reply to his greeting, but he still mani- 
fested no recognition of change of senti- 
ment. The pupils had such a momentum 


A SINGLE SESSION 


25 


of obedience that when they saw him ap- 
pearing as usual they obeyed as usual, 
though it was evident there had been at- 
tempt to rouse them against him. 

At 9:30 the clerk of the board brought 
a formidable envelope. Mr. Mallory 
opened and read: 

“Minutes of special meeting of the board 
of education, Monday morning, September 
28, 1914 

“Called to order at 8:45, all members 
present. On motion of Mr. Alsop, Re- 
solved that hereafter, beginning today, 
the school have a single session, beginning 
at 9:00 a. m. and continuing till 2 p. m. 
with recess of one half hour from 12:00 to 
1 2 :30, no pupil to be allowed to leave the 
grounds.” 

VII 

At noon the school was as usual assem- 
bled in the main room, but instead of dis- 


26 


A SINGLE SESSION 


missing them Mr. Mallory said: “The 
board of education has decided to have 
one session a day instead of two, and to 
begin now. You will therefore remain 
here till two o’clock. There will be a 
recess till half-past twelve, but the regula- 
tion of the board does not permit any of 
you to go off the school ground. As some 
of your parents might worry at your not 
coming home I have sent word to all your 
homes, explaining why you do not appear 
at the usual hour, and saying that lunch 
has been provided for you. When you 
go back to your rooms you will pass through 
the lower hall, under charge of your teach- 
ers. You will find there a supply of sand- 
wiches, and you may each take two, with 
an apple or a banana as you prefer. An 
ample supply of milk will be carried to 
each room and you need not feel stinted: 


A SINGLE SESSION 


27 


there will be enough of everything. To- 
morrow you will be expected to bring your 
own lunches, but today as you could not 
have notice we are making temporary 
provision for you.” 

Where Mr. Mallory got together on such 
short notice such a supply of food was a 
wonder to all, but the sandwiches were 
delicious, each in parafine paper that 
served as a napkin; the apples and bananas 
were of the best; the milk was cool and 
creamy; and to crown all Mr. Mallory 
himself went through every room and laid 
half a dozen nabiscoes on each desk. It 
was like a picnic. 

The teachers at first refused to partici- 
pate, but their hunger yielded to the 
tempting food, and all but Miss Hobbs 
ate more or less, though pretty sure it was 
a private treat at the principal’s expense. 


28 


A SINGLE SESSION 


The half hour was liberally allowed, and 
when the pupils got back to work there 
was a general feeling of comfort and satis- 
faction. Mr. Mallory left each teacher 
to arrange her afternoon work as best she 
could, suggesting that she think it over 
during the night and submit a regular 
schedule the next morning. There was 
not a word or a tone to indicate that the 
single session was not Mr. Mallory’s own 
pet scheme, which he was doing his best 
to make successful. 

But it caused lots of trouble. The vil- 
lage was supported mainly by manufac- 
tures where the hands had dinner at noon. 
To get up a lunch for the children to take 
to school was an added burden, they were 
missed at the dinner-table, mothers felt 
sure their health was being impaired, and 
altogether the village was in a turmoil. 


A SINGLE SESSION 


29 


When complaint was made to Mr. Mallory 
he defended the innovation, said it was 
used in many places with satisfaction, and 
especially urged that the board had no 
other reason for making the change than 
the welfare of the school. But the mem- 
bers of the board were attacked right and 
left, till not a trustee liked to show him- 
self on the street. They saw that they 
had made the mistake of their lives. 

VIII 

4 ‘Mr. Mallory,” asked Miss Hobbs, 
who remained after the rest had gone on 
Friday, “have you ever made an exhaus- 
tive study of fools?” 

“Why, no,” he replied, smiling; “I sup- 
pose we all have foolish streaks.” 

“I haven’t,” she said. “There are no 
streaks in me. I am just one solid color, 


30 


A SINGLE SESSION 


the crassest of the stupid. I made all 
this trouble for you.” 

“Then you at least have some executive 
power.” 

“Not so much. When I see how easy 
it was to rouse up antagonism to you in 
all these teachers I say with all my heart, 
what fools these mortals be.” 

“What awakened your antagonism?” 

“Wanting to have the whole afternoon 
to myself after two o’clock. The other 
teachers fell for it right away. W e thought 
you would be for it, and when you opposed 
it we just simply went crazy over it. There 
isn’t one of us who does not owe about 
everything she is to you. What should 
I be if you hadn’t taken me in hand and 
trained me? And yet I got up a petition 
to turn you out, and persuaded all the 
other teachers to sign it. Talk about 


A SINGLE SESSION 


31 


sheep following one another over a wall, 
we were a dozen times sillier than that. 
We want the vote, do we? None of us 
fourteen will want it till we have forgotten 
this affair.” 

“How do you like the single session, 
now you’ve got it?” 

“We don’t want it any more. The 
whole school with the greasy food the 
children bring seems one big dirty lunch 
room, and the last hour is worse than use- 
less. A single session may serve its pur- 
pose in some places, but it doesn’t fit this 
town.” 

“Are you going to say so to the board?” 

“We are going to say a good many 
things to the board: principally that the 
next time a lot of hysterical women send 
in a petition, the members use their own 
heads instead of following it blindly.” 


32 


A SINGLE SESSION 


“Perhaps they will say the women are 
just as hysterical in handing in this second 
petition.” 

“Very likely we are; we are a poor lot 
anyway. But if they will think with their 
brains instead of ours they will see you are 
the man to run this school and accept no 
petitions except through you.” 

“Not even the one in which you repent ?’ ’ 

“They may at least let us say that we 
repent, and, Mr. Mallory, we do. The 
rest are down stairs waiting for me to 
break the ice. You won’t believe how 
ashamed we are. Mayn’t the others come 
up?” 

IX 

Before Mr. Mallory went away from the 
building he was summoned to a special 
meeting of the board of education at five 
o’clock. He entered the room with polite 


A SINGLE SESSION 


33 


nods to the members but with dignity: 
the old comradeship was gone. A peti- 
tion of the teachers was read, rescinding 
their request for Mr. Mallory’s dismissal, 
apologizing for their attitude toward him 
and toward the board, and asking that the 
one-session plan be discontinued. 

At its close one member moved that the 
action dismissing the principal be rescinded. 
It was carried unanimously. Another 
moved that the one-session plan be dropped 
and the schedule return to the former 
hours. Carried unanimously. Another 
moved that the amount paid out of his 
own pocket by Mr. Mallory for messenger 
service and for Monday lunch, “to rectify 
as far as possible the lack of forethought 
on the part of the board,” be restored to 
him. 

All through Mr. Mallory had listened 


34 


A SINGLE SESSION 


unmoved, but not when another member 
moved that the board desired to put itself 
on record as approving the action of the 
principal under circumstances of peculiar 
difficulty, “and that it desires to say as a 
whole and for each individual member 
that the week has greatly increased our 
respect and our affection for him.” 

“And, by God, we mean it,” the presi- 
dent said, jumping up and grasping Mr. 
Mallory by the hand. 

Mr. Fellows was not a profane man; 
everybody recognized that he was making 
an affirmation. 


The vanished check 


» 















* 























THE VANISHED CHECK 


I 

“And at last you are really going, Mr, 
Forbes.” 

“Yes, Edwin, the dream of my life is to 
be realized. Think of it, a whole year in 
Germany, with plenty of money, not an 
anxiety, and my place waiting for me when 
I come back.” 

“You have earned it, Mr. Forbes.” 

“I think I have. It has meant the 
economy of years, for I felt I must have a 
nest-egg laid by to provide for sickness 
or accident; but with three thousand dol- 
lars safely stored away, I can spare the 
third of it I expect to spend.” 

“Are you going to take a letter of credit?” 

( 37 ) 


38 


THE VANISHED CHECK 


“No, Edwin, that was what I wanted 
to talk over with you. It costs quite a 
percentage to carry money that way or by 
express checks, and I want to draw my 
money through you.” 

“How can that be done?” 

“I am going to give you power of at- 
torney over my savings-bank account, 
and let you send me a draft on Berlin 
whenever I need it. I shall have a hundred 
dollars with me when I get to Germany 
and I don’t expect to spend more than 
fifty dollars a month. So all you will 
have to do will be to draw a hundred 
dollars every two months or so and forward 
it. You won’t mind that much trouble 
for your old friend.” 

“There is no amount of trouble I should- 
n’t be glad to take for you, of course, but 


THE VANISHED CHECK 


39 


isn’t that putting a good deal of trust in 
me?” 

“My dear Edwin, is there any trust I 
can’t place in you? You were my pupil, 
I was your closest friend through college, 
you have been my assistant here, and now 
you are to take my place while I am away. 
You have been so much a part of me all 
these years that you seem rather another 
pair of hands than another person. What 
happens to men who do not have a friend 
they can trust as I trust you?” 

“What ought to happen to any man who 
is trusted as you trust me and who betrays 
that trust?” 

“There is nothing I fear less than that, 
so it is all settled.” 

II 

Coming home from a short trip one 
Saturday Edwin Turner met a classmate 


40 


THE VANISHED CHECK 


who had gone into banking. “By the 
way,” his friend said to him, “do you de- 
posit in the Globe savings bank in your 
place?” 

“No,” replied Edwin, “I can invest my 
money so as to get more than four per 
cent.” 

“Sometimes you can and sometimes 
you can’t; the average man is pretty lucky 
to get four per cent and have his funds 
safe. But I was going to warn you to get 
any money you had out of the Globe.” 

“Why?” 

“The Washington Trust is its New York 
correspondent, and we find it has been 
kiting checks.” 

“What is that?” 

“Suppose it has an account with us and 
another with the First National of Chicago, 
and on the same day it mails a draft to us 


THE VANISHED CHECK 


41 


on Chicago for five thousand dollars and a 
draft to Chicago on us for five thousand 
dollars, they will just balance: see?” 

‘‘But what is the advantage?” 

“It takes a week for the two drafts to 
get back to their banks and be charged up, 
and in the mean time the Globe has had an 
extra credit of five thousand dollars on 
both banks. If it overdrew either account 
it wouldn’t be noticed till the two checks 
had been charged up.” 

“I should think that would be discov- 
ered.” 

“It is eventually, and we have notified 
the Globe to close up its account. It is 
a sign of hopeless weakness, which is why 
I warned you. Of course this is personal 
information, for yourself only. I am not 
peddling our bank secrets.” 


42 


THE VANISHED CHECK 


“Thank you. If I had money there I 
should get it out in a hurry.” 

Ill 

While Edwin had no deposit in the 
Globe savings bank, all of Mr. Forbes’s 
money was there. Edwin had not told 
of it to his classmate because he was nat- 
urally reticent; it was one of his strong 
points as a teacher that he let his pupils 
do all the talking. But he did some rapid 
thinking. If the train was on time, as it 
was so far, it would arrive in town at 3 :41. 
The bank closed at four and he could get 
there in five minutes. He walked rapidly 
and he was there in time. The cashier was 
alone and was closing up. 

Edwin drew a check for the exact amount 
on deposit with interest, something over 
twenty-six hundred dollars. The cashier 
was evidently disturbed, but tried to speak 


THE VANISHED CHECK 


43 


cheerfully as he asked, “Will you have a 
draft on New York?” 

Edwin smiled grimly : he knew how 
much a draft on New York from this bank 
was worth. “No,” he said, “I should 
like currency.” 

“We are all balanced up and put away 
for the day,” said the cashier nervously. 
“If you will come in tomorrow morning 
we will fix you up.” 

“It is still in bank hours,” replied Edwin, 
pointing to the clock, “and I want the 
money now.” 

Boys in school never delayed to obey 
Mr. Turner when he spoke in that tone, 
and the cashier hesitated no longer. But 
he found it difficult to make up the amount ; 
he even had to put in two hundred dollars 
in gold. 


44 


THE VANISHED CHECK 


IV 

Edwin took the money to the First 
national bank, where he had a drawer 
in the safe-deposit department, just closing 
up but to which he was admitted. He 
took out his life-insurance policies and some 
Texas oil stock that he had bought at a 
bargain and found worthless, and spread 
the money across the bottom of the drawer, 
putting the bills below, then the gold, and 
covering it with the stock and the policies, 
so that the guardian in putting back the 
drawer would observe nothing unusual. 

The next morning word came to him that 
the Globe bank did not open its doors. 
The evening newspapers told in big head- 
lines that the cashier had committed 
suicide in a cheap New York hotel. Edwin 
exulted. “At last,” he said, “I have been 
able to pay back to Mr. Forbes something 


THE VANISHED CHECK 


45 


of what he has done for me. Except for 
my meeting my classmate, except for my 
prompt and decisive action, he would have 
lost every cent of his savings.” 

But he still said nothing about it, and 
when the morning newspaper gave a full 
account of the looting of the bank, so com- 
plete that the cashier had even carried away 
the loose postage stamps, he was astonished 
to see in the headlines that one of the 
heaviest losers was the absent principal, 
“Barton Forbes, $2,600”. It was still 
stranger that to the last there was no 
sign that his check for the money was 
discovered. Evidently the cashier had 
hurried to a 4:20 train east and had not 
had time to make the entry on the books; 
perhaps in so great a theft twenty-six hun- 
dred dollars was not worth considering and 
he did not even preserve the check. At 


46 


THE VANISHED CHECK 


any rate, after the books were gone over 
and the final results published, Barton 
Forbes was still among the creditors for 
the full amount. There was even talk 
of a subscription to make it up to him, 
but so many had been hit by the failure 
of the bank that the proposition did not 
get beyond a good-natured wish. 

Still Edwin kept silent. He was ready 
at any time to produce the money to the 
last penny, but why be precipitate? Mr. 
Forbes would appreciate it all the more 
when he thought he had lost it. 

He had not written to Mr. Forbes about 
it. It so happened he had sent him a 
hundred dollars a few days before the 
affair occurred, and was not likely to be 
called on for more within two months. 
Then he would tell him, and say. “But 


THE VANISHED CHECK 


47 


every penny of it is safe in my drawer in 
the safe-deposit vault.” 

V 

He liked to think of it there. He did 
not go to it, because he did not want to 
attract attention; he was glad that no one 
had observed his visit to the savings bank 
that last afternoon, or remembered his 
going to his drawer, and he took pains 
to do nothing that would recall either. 
But he recollected just how that money 
looked — twenty-six hundred and eleven 
dollars and twenty-two cents: he remem- 
bered even the two dimes and the two 
pennies on the end. 

There was comfort in ready money right 
under your finger like that. He would 
have liked to handle it, to spread out and 
fold the bills, to pile the ten- and the five- 
dollar gold pieces in heaps. It seemed so 


48 


THE VANISHED CHECK 


much more as currency than it did on the 
leaf of a bank book. 

He had never saved very much. He 
had laid money aside; in fact he had been 
called niggardly; but somehow he was 
always getting caught in speculations 
where money could be made rapidly. 
Finally he had sold out everything he had 
and bought this Texas oil stock. The agent 
had guaranteed him thirty per cent, and 
given him a written promise to buy it back 
any day at an advance of ten per cent a 
year. But it had paid nothing, and when 
he undertook to hold the agent to his 
promise the man had laughed at him. 
So he was still poor; to tell the truth he 
had not yet fully repaid the money Mr. 
Forbes had lent him to go through college. 
So that big pile of bills and gold in his 
safe-deposit drawer looked to him like 


THE VANISHED CHECK 


49 


food to a famished man. He had tried so 
hard to accumulate like that and yet he 
had nothing. He wished he had adhered 
to the savings-bank, like Mr. Forbes. 

Why? Mr. Forbes’s own experience 
showed that savings banks involved as 
much risk as any other investment. So 
far as Mr. Forbes was concerned he had 
lost every cent. “It is only because I 
happened to have a chance to save him,” 
said Edwin to himself. “I am making him 
an absolute gift.” 

VI 

Of course he would make him the gift. 
Why, of course. And yet somehow the 
expression of the certainty cast doubt 
upon it. After all, why should he? Only 
the merest accident had made it possible 
to rescue the money. What was more, 
only a clear-headed and quick-thinking 


50 


THE VANISHED CHECK 


and determined man could have rescued 
it. Mr. Forbes had asked him to draw 
money and send checks, but he had not 
said to him. ‘‘Now keep watch on the 
bank and see that the money is safe.” 
All Mr. Forbes asked him to do he had 
done faithfully and well, and he could not 
be held responsible to Mr. Forbes if he had 
exercised a protection over money not 
entrusted to him. 

The more he thought about it, the more 
he satisfied himself that the money was 
his. Nobody could ever know he had 
got it. He had earned it by financial 
acumen and skill. Providence put an 
opportunity in his way and he had seized 
it. Enormous fortunes had been built 
on capital secured by much more ques- 
tionable means. If his investments proved 
prosperous he would sometime make Mr. 


THE VANISHED CHECK 


51 


Forbes presents that would more than 
restore the amount with interest. 

Before a month had passed he no longer 
questioned that the money was his. Then 
it began to worry him that it was lying 
there accumulating no interest, and he 
resolved to invest it. No Texas oil lands 
this time. The town was on a trolley 
leading to Ipswich, well built, good cars, 
always on time, no accidents, making 
money, five per cent dividends so far and 
bigger expected. He bought stock in that 
at 98, putting in cash that he borrowed 
to make up twenty-seven shares. He had 
taken the money out of his drawer and 
gone down to New York to purchase. He 
put the twenty-seven shares into his safe- 
deposit drawer, and felt that at last he was 
a capitalist. 


52 


THE VANISHED CHECK 


VII 

Jena, April 20, 1912 

My dear Edwin, 

You will wonder why I have gone three 
months without sending for money, but 
I have spent incredibly little. I have 
been boarding with the widow of a Luth- 
eran clergyman, a dear old soul who liked 
to have me in the house, and who besides 
a fine large airy sleeping-room gave me 
the full run of her husband’s study, with a 
considerable library and the most comfor- 
table old furniture. For all this and 
everything, including laundry, she charged 
me twenty marks a week, twenty dollars 
a month, and I haven’t had much use for 
any more. 

But now I want a lot of money, six hun- 
dred dollars at one fell swoop. Do you 
remember when we were at the St. Louis 


THE VANISHED CHECK 


53 


exposition and went to see Madam Butter- 
fly one night, how a series of curtains rolled 
up one after another, as you irreverently 
said, like peelings from an onion? I am 
going to raise a series of curtains like that, 
so prepare to be astonished. 

Curtain No. 1 — I am going to have my 
degree. That is unusual in a year, but 
Professor Rein has someway taken a liking 
to me, and as I have completed all the 
work he gives and a great deal more in 
other departments he has secured it for me. 
This involves considerable expense, in- 
cluding the printing of a hundred-page 
thesis on The distinctive American idea in 
education. 

Curtain No. 2 — I have staid right here 
in Jena the whole year. I am going to 
make up for it by a roundabout way home. 
I have bought what the Germans call a 


54 


THE VANISHED CHECK 


rundreise ticket, only it doesn’t come back 
to Jena, but takes me to Athens, to Tunis, 
to Rome, and to Genoa, from where I shall 
sail home. All the year I have been study- 
ing the abstract, the theory. Now I am 
going to store up the geographical for my 
pupils. I am going to mount the steps 
of the Parthenon, I am going to look out 
over the Mediterranean from where Dido 
saw the disappearing ships of Aeneas, I 
am going to stand where Cicero delivered 
his Catilines. I am going to look as one 
storing up vivid pictures for his class, and 
ask myself how would Edmund Beresford, 
Euphemia Hobart, Myrtle Paxton see 
these things if their eyes were looking on 
them. I mean to make our Latin and 
Greek work more real next year than ever 
before. 

Curtain No. 3 — 2 (x+y) = ? Yes, all 


THE VANISHED CHECK 


55 


this is to be multiplied by two, for I am 
married. Not hoping to be, not engaged, 
but actually married and living at this 
instant with the dearest women in the 
world. Strange, isn’t it? I seemed so 
hopeless: so many good women have tried 
to make me see the not impossible she in 
girls whom I admired in the abstract but 
in whom I found no threads of attachment. 

Her father was an American college pro- 
fessor who in his youth had studied here, 
and when he retired came here to end his 
days, bringing his daughter with him. 
I grew to know them, to visit them, to be 
intimate at their home till my landlady 
complained because I was away so many 
meals. 

Her father’s college had been on the 
Rock Island railroad, and when he came 
over he invested all his money in Rock 


56 


THE VANISHED CHECK 


Island collateral 4’s, a low-interest security 
that he supposed as safe as Gibraltar. On 
April 1 when he took his coupons to the 
bank he was told that they had defaulted 
their interest, and that the bonds were 
practically valueless: the road had been 
looted. The shock took the heart right 
out of him, and he died within a week. I 
naturally looked after the funeral and 
after her, and to be able to do so with pro- 
priety we married immediately. 

So my tickets are for two, and you will 
see where six hundred dollars is easily 
absorbed: in fact I am already in debt 
for the greater part of it. Among other 
things, I have had the library boxed to be 
sent over, in twenty-six cases. 

How fortunate that I have still two 
thousand more, and my place awaiting me. 
You can’t think how hungry I have grown 


THE VANISHED CHECK 


57 


for my boys and girls. I envy you that 
graduating class. Is Abijah Boomer com- 
ing out all right? He was the only one I 
was apprehensive about. What a dear 
Olga Kleber must have grown to be; she 
is as lovely in disposition as in features. 

But I am writing too long a letter. You 
see my face is turned homeward now, and 
I grow garrulous when I think of my school. 
I shall be a better teacher, now that I have 
a wife. And such a wife. You will be 
eager to know her, and I guarantee she 
will surpass your fondest imaginings. 

As ever, your friend, 

Barton Forbes 

VIII 

Edwin supposed his clutch upon the 
twenty-seven shares was inflexible, but as 
he read his letter through again and again, 
as he remembered what Mr. Forbes had 


58 


THE VANISHED CHECK 


done for him, more than the world knew, 
as he realized how his old teacher depended 
on him, how embarrassed and distressed 
he would be without his savings, he re- 
solved to send the six hundred dollars, 
and to explain how he had rescued the 
savings, the rest still secure. 

Once determined upon this, he felt a 
load roll off his soul. He wondered how 
he could for a moment have planned to 
rob his friend, as from this point of view 
he could see clearly he would have done. 
“Thank heaven, I recovered from my 
insanity in time,” he said to himself. 
“Isn’t it curious a man can go off at such 
a tangent from all that he believes in and 
really is?” 

So the next day he took his trolley stock 
to the New York broker of whom he had 


THE VANISHED CHECK 


59 


bought it. “I should like to sell these 
shares at the market price,” he said. 

The broker looked at him curiously. 
“Hadn’t you heard that the road has gone 
into the hands of a receiver?” he asked. 

“Of a receiver?” repeated Edwin in- 
creduously. “Why, the cars are crowd- 
ed.” 

“Yes, but dividends have been paid out 
of receipts up to the full amount, with no 
allowance for deteriorations. The road 
needs new copper wire, new rails, new 
cars. It is deeply in debt. It will de- 
fault interest on its bonds. It will un- 
doubtedly be reorganized and this common 
stock wiped out. The public service com- 
mission has demanded a detailed account 
of the cost of the road, and startling de- 
velopments are promised. Probably it 


60 


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cannot be sold for the amount of its first 
mortgage bonds.” 

“And these shares have no value?” 
asked Edwin, fingering them nervously. 

“Not a dollar.” 

IX 

Mercury, N. Y., May 3, 1912 
Dear Mr. Forbes, 

I have been dreading your letter asking 
for the next remittance, and hoping some 
more favorable turn of affairs would give 
me a better story to tell, but all seems 
more hopeless than ever. I enclose clip- 
pings from the newspapers that tell how 
the cashier of your bank had been specu- 
lating in Wall street with the bank’s funds, 
and finally ran away and shot himself. 
Apparently he did not save enough of the 
bank’s money left to live on . Investigation 
showed that he had compelled the reduc- 


THE VANISHED CHECK 


61 


tion and taking up of mortgages, so that 
the assets are less than the liabilities. The 
president had been the cashier’s close 
friend for forty years and trusted him 
implicitly. He loses everything. He used 
to ride in his carriage, and it is pitiful to 
see him hobble in and out of a street-car, 
gnarled up as he is with muscular rheuma- 
tism. Many here have lost all their sav- 
ings, and there seems no prospect of even 
a small dividend. 

But of course you are the one I think of. 
Your letter is so happy, so confident, and 
now you must learn of this disaster. I 
wish I could help you out, but my savings 
are gone too. I shall try to send you 
something out of my May and June salary, 
for I do not forget that you have always 
begged me not to hurry about paying the 
balance of what you advanced me at the 


62 


THE VANISHED CHECK 


time of my trouble and lent me to go 
through college. But it will be only a 
trifle compared with what you have lost. 
It seems so hard to invest money. You 
were right about the Texas oil stock: it 
has never paid a dollar and can’t be given 
away. Now your savings bank is stolen 
bare, and they say the Ipswich trolley 
is bankrupt. 

I wish there were some way to soften 
this blow. Evidently I ought to have 
written at once, but I so hoped the bank 
would be able to pay something. 

I am so overwhelmed by this calamity 
that I am hardly in the mood to felicitate 
you upon your marriage, and yet if your 
wife is all she seems to you, as I hope and 
trust she is, of course that is more than 
all else. Tell her she has married the 
best man in the world, as no one else can 


THE VANISHED CHECK 


63 


know as well as I, and that I am longing 
to see her. 

You must know how hard it is to write 
this letter. 

Your sorrowing friend, 

Edwin Turner 
X 

And now came another turn in Edwin’s 
feelings toward Mr. Forbes. In the first 
place, he dreaded the principal’s return. 
Some way he had a premonition that his 
old teacher’s searching eyes would see 
into his soul and discover his secret. Cer- 
tainly he never could be comfortable in 
Mr. Forbes’s presence. The old sneaky 
feeling he supposed he had so long outlived 
would come back, and Mr. Forbes would 
be sure to detect it. All these years he 
had respected himself, and he was con- 
scious it had shone through his manner. 


64 


THE VANISHED CHECK 


He was equally conscious that when this 
constant remembrance of defrauding his 
best friend kept pushing to the surface 
it would make his glance furtive, his voice 
uncertain. 

And after all this was Mr. Forbes’s fault. 
What right had Mr. Forbes to put on him 
the burden of sending drafts to him to 
save two or three per cent? “Except for 
that I should have had nothing to do with 
the money and would still be the man of 
honor I had supposed myself and Mr. 
Forbes trusted,” he reflected bitterly. 

This line of thought grew into another. 
Why should Mr. Forbes come back at all? 
Everybody agreed that the school had run 
well in the principal’s absence. There 
had been no weakness of discipline, no 
falling off in scholarship. Over and over 
again he had been congratulated on filling 


THE VANISHED CHECK 


65 


fully the absent principal’s place. Why 
should Mr. Forbes come back and get 
eighteen hundred dollars a year for what 
had been done just as well for twelve? 
Why should not the substitute become 
himself the principal, at the principal’s 
salary? 

It was not impossible. If Mr. Forbes 
was so deeply in debt over there he might 
have to stay there. If he could not get 
back, his place would almost certainly fall 
to his substitute. 

Even if he could get back? That was 
more difficult, but after all the contract 
for the next year was only implicit. The 
board had given Mr. Forbes a year’s leave 
of absence, but it always appointed for 
the coming year only, and the teacher 
for next year had not been actually elected. 
So far he had been loyal to Mr. Forbes. 


66 


THE VANISHED CHECK 


He had kept it in the foreground that the 
real principal was temporarily absent, and 
whenever anything was commended had 
said, “Yes, Mr. Forbes built so securely 
that it stands firm in his absence.” It 
would be just as easy to make changes and 
point out how they were improvements. 
Before June he could make the school 
quite willing Mr. Forbes should not come 
back. 

XI 

Once conceived and accepted this plot 
pervaded. Edwin was careful to frame 
what he said in words friendly to the prin- 
cipal, but the substance made his return 
seem uncertain. He lauded Mr. Forbes’s 
great achievement in winning a degree, 
but spoke as though he might have grown 
so enamored of German university life 
as to want to stay there. He told every- 


THE VANISHED CHECK 


67 


where of his marriage to a German girl, 
wondering whether he could persuade her 
to come to America to live. In school he 
was continually saying, “If Mr. Forbes 
is here next year,” and when there was 
some change the pupils particularly wanted 
he would say, “Why, if Mr. Forbes should 
not return and I should be put in charge, 
of course I should be very glad to carry 
out this plan,” till the boys and girls began 
to hope Mr. Forbes might not return. 
Altogether he quite persuaded himself 
that it was probable Mr. Forbes would 
make other arrangements, and that he 
should be the next principal. 

XII 

Teachers were elected at the meeting 
the night before commencement and Ed- 
win was asked to be present. “I have a 
letter from Mr. Forbes,” said the president, 


68 


THE VANISHED CHECK 


“regretting that circumstances make it 
impossible for him to return next year, 
but we are hoping he may change his mind, 
and I propose that we elect the other teach- 
ers and leave the principalship vacant 
for the present. What do you say, Mr. 
Turner?” 

“I confess I should very much prefer 
that action should be taken tonight and 
announced at the exercises tomorrow,” 
replied Edwin, determined to clinch the 
matter and take no chances. 

“Very well,” said the president. “The 
board will then go into executive session, 
and you will hear from us after the diplo- 
mas are delivered.” And Edwin went 
home triumphant and exulting. 

XIII 

The exercises passed off with smooth- 
ness and credit to all concerned. The 


THE VANISHED CHECK 


69 


graduates were earnest, well-mannered 
boys and girls, of manifest good attain- 
ment and high purpose. The president 
said as much, as he gave them their diplo- 
mas. “We are proud of the school,” he 
said, “and of the man who has made it 
what it is.” 

Edwin’s face beamed upon the audience. 
This was higher praise than he had ex- 
pected, and he resolved in replying to 
say generously that it must be remembered 
some of the credit was due to Mr. Forbes. 

But the president went on. “We were 
fearful,” he said, “that this man would 
not be with us today : in fact he had written 
us that he could not be with us next year.” 
Here Edwin’s face whitened and he began 
to sense what was coming, part of it. “But 
Judge Fellows, long the leading school 
man in his own city, and a friend of the 


70 


THE VANISHED CHECK 


schools throughout the county, happened 
to be in Germany, and he ran across Mr. 
Forbes the day after he wrote this letter. 
He learned that his resignation was be- 
cause Mr. Forbes had lost his savings in 
the Globe bank and was temporarily em- 
barrassed for funds, having just married. 
Judge Fellows at once advanced the money 
needed, and Mr. Forbes and Mrs. Forbes 
are with us today.” 

He turned, as the couple came forward 
from the ante-room where they had been 
sitting, and took places on the platform. 

“Let us all greet our returned principal 
and his charming wife,” said the president; 
and the audience rose and smiled and ap- 
plauded a warm welcome. 

XIV 

“There is a little more to this story,” 
the president continued, “and I will ask 
Judge Fellows to tell it.” 


THE VANISHED CHECK 


71 


Edwin looked about for some means of 
escape, but he observed that two men 
whom he knew to be deputy sheriffs sat 
in front seats and were watching him, and 
though he apprehended what was coming 
he nerved himself to sit erect with counte- 
nance as unmoved as possible. 

“This matter of the Globe savings bank 
happened to come before me,” said the 
judge, “and I became interested in it. 
Only a few days ago I had occasion to go 
over the papers which the cashier took 
away with him, and which were found 
in his room at the hotel. Among them was 
a memorandum book which I glanced at, 
as others had glanced at it, and tossed 
aside, as others had tossed it aside, but 
somehow I felt moved to pick it up again 
and investigate it more closely. It was 
of the old-fashioned kind with a little 


72 


THE VANISHED CHECK 


pocket on the inside of the cover. This 
pocket seemed to be empty, but I poked it 
open. In it I found a check for twenty- 
six hundred and eleven dollars and twenty- 
two cents, signed ‘Barton Forbes, by Ed- 
win Turner’.” 

At this every eye in the- audience turned 
upon the acting-principal, ten minutes 
ago so exultant, now manifestly facing 
disgrace only by utmost effort. 

‘‘I had the matter looked up,” continued 
the judge, ‘‘and we discovered that Mr. 
Turner drew this money from the bank 
ten minutes before it closed on the last 
day it was open; in fact that the twenty- 
six hundred dollars was all that was left 
of the bank’s assets for the cashier to steal, 
and that when that was extorted from him 
he had no other refuge but suicide. We 
also found that Mr. Turner put that money 


THE VANISHED CHECK 


73 


into his own safe-deposit drawer at the First 
national bank, and that when the check 
was not found and he supposed it could 
never be discovered that he had stolen 
his principal’s money, he bought with it 
in his own name some twenty-seven shares 
of Ipswich trolley stock. He wrote to Mr. 
Forbes a letter of hypocritical condolence; 
he did not even send him the money he 
personally had owed him for years, part 
of it for help through college, and part of 
it to save him from prison. For fifteen 
years ago, when Edwin Turner was seven- 
teen years old the sheriff came to the school 
where he was then a pupil of Mr. Forbes 
with a warrant for his arrest for stealing. 
To save him Mr. Forbes paid back the 
money, persuaded the man from whom it 
was stolen and the officers to conceal the 
theft, and devoted himself to making out 


74 


THE VANISHED CHECK 


of this outlaw an honest man and a scholar 
and a teacher. This is how Edwin Turner 
has repaid him. He will now be taken 
into custody, and I venture to say he will 
find no benevolent friend to try again to 
save him and reform him.” 

XV 

As the deputy sheriffs led Edwin Tur- 
ner out of the room only one pair of eyes 
showed sympathy. 

“It must have been a sudden tempta- 
tion,” Mr. Forbes said to his wife. 

“Not so very sudden,” she replied coldly. 
“It has lasted four months.” 


Eleven to one 



ELEVEN TO ONE 


I 

It seemed to Mr. Harwood an imposi- 
tion. Never before had he known the 
principal of a school to be put on a jury. 
For sentimental reasons he had maintained 
his residence in this county, still owning 
the old homestead, though he seldom came 
home except to vote; ordinarily his name 
would not have been on the jury list. But 
this was a murder case and it was difficult 
to find twelve men who had not made up 
their mind as to the guilt of the accused, 
so a third extraordinary panel caught his 
name in its net. He tried to persuade the 
judge to excuse him, but in vain; he was 
told that the trial would be short, with 
( 77 ) 


78 


ELEVEN TO ONE 


perhaps no issue of fact, and he was needed : 
a citizen ought always to be ready to serve 
the courts as well as the government of 
the state. 

When it came to examining him he could 
offer no grounds for exception. Had he 
read of the case ? N ot that he remembered. 
Had he talked of it with any one? No. 
Had he been acquainted with the murdered 
man? Never heard of him. With the 
accused wife? No. Had he any pre- 
judice against capital punishment? No; 
he would like to have added, except that 
it was not inflicted often enough. Was he 
acquainted with the district attorney? 
No. With any of the assistant counsel 
for the prosecution? No. With the at- 
torney for the defence ? No. Satisfactory , 
both sides said, and he took his seat. 


ELEVEN TO ONE 


79 


II 

What a dreary prospect. This vacation 
which he needed so much to be wasted on 
a repulsive trial, in a hot, ill- ventilated 
court room, in close contact with eleven 
men none of whom suggested a bathtub 
and one of whom reeked of the stable, to 
listen to a sordid story of an abused wife 
who was finally goaded into revenge — what 
could be more exasperating? 

Apparently there was no plausible de- 
fence, and as the district attorney outlined 
the case for the state Mr. Harwood lis- 
tened with apathetic indifference until he 
heard, “This woman, known before her 
marriage as Eudora Marx — ” 

He almost jumped from his seat, and 
his first fear was that some one might have 
observed his agitation. Fortunately he 
was on the end of the back row farthest 


80 


ELEVEN TO ONE 


from the judge, and all eyes were turned 
away from him. He fancied there was just 
a furtive glance from the prisoner, appar- 
ently a hope that he would not recognize 
the name. For Eudora Marx had been a 
pupil in his first school. She had not re- 
cited to him, but it was a small school 
and he knew every one of the hundred 
pupils. Eudora Marx: her wistful little 
face came back to him. Eudora Marx, 
always so eager for approval and affection, 
so conscientious, so puzzling over what 
was just the right thing to do. And she 
had murdered her husband. What a 
scoundrel the fellow must have been. 

Ill 

It was a long time before he could find 
Eudora Marx under the careworn, listless 
face of the prisoner, but little by little it 
came back to him and he recognized it. 


ELEVEN TO ONE 


81 


As the district attorney spoke of her mar- 
riage and her early hopes there was even 
a trace of the wistful look which had al- 
ways made him so tender in thinking of 
her. Yes, that was his little Eudora Marx, 
whom he had tried so hard to shield and 
direct, for whom he had high hopes. A 
murderer. The more he watched her the 
more he saw of his former pupil, and when 
he felt convinced that the Eudora Marx 
he had known ten years ago still predomi- 
nated in her nature, he became profoundly 
impressed that she never poisoned her 
husband. No, she was innocent. What- 
ever circumstances might indicate, she 
never did it. And she should not be con- 
victed of it. 

IV 

He now blessed the kindly providence 
that had put him into the jury box. Alone 


82 


ELEVEN TO ONE 


he could compel the jury to bring in a 
verdict of disagreement, but he meant to 
do more than that. If he could secure an 
acquittal she could never be tried again. 
Her husband had left no will and con- 
siderable property. She could have some 
comfort and opportunity the rest of her 
life. All the love Mr. Harwood felt for 
his pupils seemed to concentrate on this 
one poor little wistful girl whom life had 
dealt so hardly with, and he rejoiced in 
the opportunity to do for her what at this 
instant no one else in the world could do. 
V 

The first necessity was to give no sign 
that he was her ally. Fortunately she 
avoided his glance; no lynx-eyed reporter 
could catch a mutual look. He was only 
one of twelve and he could never hope to 
convince the other eleven by general 


ELEVEN TO ONE 


83 


argument in her favor. He must study 
them, must watch the effect of every bit 
of testimony, must see what appealed to 
each man, and learn so far as possible the 
working of each man’s thought. He must 
capture every one of those eleven men. 
The happiness, the safety of that little 
wistful face he remembered depended on 
it. From his seat as he looked toward the 
judge, every face was under his eye and 
every instant he made and recorded some 
new observation. All his life he had read 
the characters of pupils in their faces; all 
the skill he had acquired he applied with 
intensity to this trial. 

t 1 

The district attorney was a good lawyer. 
He made the case simple, and yielded much. 
The evidence was circumstantial, he ad- 
mitted, but so was most evidence in poison- 


84 


ELEVEN TO ONE 


ing cases: no woman would put poison in 
her husband’s coffee-cup when any one 
else was looking on. But her husband 
died of arsenic: that he should show. The 
arsenic was in the cup of coffee he drank at 
breakfast : that he should prove. His wife 
had personally handed him that cup of 
coffee: that would not be disputed. She 
had brought it from the kitchen where 
there was no other person at the time. 
Finally, she had bought arsenic in the 
village three days before. That would be 
proved incontestably. What did she buy 
that arsenic for? Why call evidence cir- 
cumstantial when every step of the murder 
is traced back inevitably like this? 

But there must be a motive. Unfor- 
tunately the motive was too apparent. 
From the day of their marriage her husband 
had overworked and abused her. He 


ELEVEN TO ONE 


85 


owned a large farm and employed many 
men, yet he forced her to do all the house- 
work, even the washing and ironing. She 
was the first to rise in the morning, the last 
to go to bed at night. She was never al- 
lowed to go to church or to any sort of 
social gathering. If she failed in any way 
to meet his wishes he did not hesitate to 
beat her. All this the prosecution instead 
of denying would prove to the jury. Peo- 
ple would say the victim ought to have 
been murdered and that the wonder was 
she had not done it long ago. He would 
admit that the man deserved punishment, 
but punishment must come through the 
law. If an abused wife may put arsenic 
in her husband’s coffee and escape the 
electric chair, who of us will eat breakfast 
securely tomorrow morning? No, he ad- 
mitted all that the defence might urge in 


86 


ELEVEN TO ONE 


the way of justification goading her to 
the crime, but the only question before 
the jury was, did she commit it? All these 
painful circumstances show motive. 

Finally a new motive became over- 
powering. The poor woman’s mother had 
died and she wanted to attend the funeral. 
The husband refused, because it was hay- 
ing time, the house was full of men, and 
he could not spare her. That morning he 
drank the poisoned coffee and went to the 
field. As soon as he was out of sight she 
hurried away to the train and went to the 
funeral. It was the only way she could 
go. How can a case be more complete? 

VII 

The attorney assigned by the court for 
her defence was a weak, wobbly lawyer, 
not without knowledge of practice, but 
with no steadiness of purpose. He made 


ELEVEN TO ONE 


87 


it manifest that he had no conviction him- 
self of his client’s innocence, and that he 
expected her conviction. His effort was 
rather to protect his reputation than to 
clear her. He took pains to point out 
that his case was difficult and hopeless, 
and showed that he was rather marking 
time than really trying to arrive anywhere. 
As he let opportunity after opportunity 
slip, manifesting that he had not even 
informed himself of the details of the case, 
much less meditated upon them, Mr. 
Harwood could have throttled him. A 
juror would have been permitted now and 
then to put a question himself, but he 
felt that it would be useless, and that his 
way to aid Eudora was to remain entirely 
in the background. 

VIII 

All that the district attorney had prom- 
ised he proved beyond question. It was 


88 


ELEVEN TO ONE 


a terrible picture he spread out of life in 
that farmhouse. A nephew of the dead 
man, hardly more than half-witted, told 
a vivid story. “He used to lick me,” he 
said, “but when I got to be fifteen years 
old I made up my mind I wouldn’t stand 
it any more and I grabbed a club and, hit 
him over the head till I knocked him down 
and he begged. After that he let me alone 
but he used to beat his wife. He didn’t 
get mad and do it right off; he would tell 
her he was going to. If he hadn’t been 
poisoned and she had come home from the 
funeral he wouldn’t have touched her that 
day but he would have waited maybe a 
week and then given her an awful licking 
without leaving a mark on her — omd she 
would have known all the week it was coming. 
As the boy told it everybody in the court- 
room shuddered. 


ELEVEN TO ONE 


89 


IX 

After changing his mind two or three 
times her attorney decided to put the 
prisoner on the stand. Still apathetic she 
answered the questions he asked indiffer- 
ently, hopelessly. Did she put the arsenic 
in the cup of coffee? No. Who had put 
it in? She had not the slightest idea. 
Was anybody else in the kitchen during 
breakfast? Yes, the men washed there; 
all of them were in and out of there. Was 
any one there when she poured her hus- 
band’s cup of coffee? She didn’t know; 
she wasn’t thinking about it and didn’t 
notice. 

That was about all her lawyer brought 
out; the district attorney would have been 
wise to let her step down without cross- 
examination. But he asked, “You bought 


90 


ELEVEN TO ONE 


arsenic at the drug store the Friday be- 
fore?” 

“Yes.” 

“Why did you do that?” 

“To kill rats.” 

“Had you ever bought arsenic before 
to kill rats?” 

“Yes, every two or three months.” 

He saw that he had uncovered a rebuttal 
of his principal evidence; it was incredible 
that her attorney should have overlooked 
it. Now that it was brought to light he 
might as well follow it through. “For 
how many years?” 

“Five or six. Before that we used to 
buy rough-on-rats, but we found arsenic 
was the same and cheaper.” 

“Were you much troubled with rats?” 

She shuddered. “Once I heard them in 
the shed and went out to drive them away, 


ELEVEN TO ONE 


91 


but there were so many of them that they 
didn’t run. They started toward me with 
their eyes shining in the dark, and I had 
barely time to shut the door.” 

“Did they ever bite you?” 

“Once I was in the pantry and in moving 
a can I uncovered a rat. The door was 
shut, it couldn’t get out, and it ran up my 
skirts. I couldn’t shake it loose, and it 
kept biting me.” 

“What did you do?” 

“I screamed for my husband.” 

“Did he come?” 

“Yes, but when he found out what the 
matter was he sat down in a chair and 
laughed. He said it was better than a 
circus.” 

Mr. Harwood’s right hand stretched 
out. How he would have liked to clutch 
his fingers on the back of that man’s neck 


92 


ELEVEN TO ONE 


and close in his thumb on that man’s 
windpipe. 

“What finally happened?” 

“The rat got away. It always seemed 
to me that it was still in the house and 
remembered how easy it was and would 
run up my skirts again.” 

“That’s all,” the district attorney said; 
he had no intention of opening up any 
more evidence the defence had failed to 
find. Her counsel went over the same 
ground but found nothing new and she was 
allowed to go back to her seat. 

X 

The summing up and the judge’s charge 
were what might have been expected, and 
an early verdict of guilty was looked for; 
one enterprising evening newspaper went 
so far as to announce it. When the jury 
retired Mr. Harwood felt well acquainted 


ELEVEN TO ONE 


93 


with every man. In spite of the judge’s 
warning there had been not a little quiet 
conversation among the jurors concern- 
ing the case, and as Mr. Harwood had 
proved an ideal listener he had not only 
heard most of what had been said but had 
gained the good will of his fellow eleven. 
It was an honest lot of men ; every one was 
conscious of his responsibility and deter- 
mined to do the right thing. They had 
their weaknesses but as jurors they ranked 
higher than as men, rising to the occasion. 
Mr. Harwood felt his confidence in the 
jury system increased. 

But he must persuade them as individ- 
uals. Three of them he knew would go 
with the majority; he had only to win five 
of the other eight and he could depend on 
these three. But another man, Siegmund 
Arbogast, was just the opposite; he prided 


94 


ELEVEN TO ONE 


himself on standing out against the crowd. 
Mr. Harwood had determined how to gain 
this vote, and when it was proposed to 
elect himself foreman he said, “This is my 
first experience on a jury, and I nominate 
instead Mr. Arbogast.” Nobody else 
would have nominated Mr. Arbogast, but 
nobody wanted to object to him, so he was 
elected. 

Before discussion a first ballot was 
called for, and most of the jurors were 
surprised to find the vote eleven to one: 
they had expected a unanimous verdict 
of guilty. 

At first it seemed as if there must be some 
mistake, and another ballot was taken. 
When the count was the same there was 
considerable looking about to see who was 
the incredulous one, but the foreman was 
firm. “Gentlemen,” he said, “every man 


ELEVEN TO ONE 


95 


is entitled to his own judgment, and we 
must not force it even by trying to dis- 
cover how the other members of the jury 
vote. The man who thinks the prisoner 
innocent has a right to think so and to 
vote so, and to conceal it if he chooses to.” 

XI 

Two jurors Mr. Harwood had fixed upon 
as proud of their shrewdness. He had 
heard Giles Walsingham remark that such 
a thing wouldn’t go down with him, and 
Ebenezer Batson say, “He must have 
thought I was bom yesterday.” So when 
there was a lull among those who wanted 
to talk and the crowd about the table 
felt like listening he remarked admiringly, 
“What a master lawyer that district at- 
torney is.” 

“01 don't know,” suggested Mr. Batson; 


“he had an easy case.” 


96 


ELEVEN TO ONE 


“That’s just the skill of it,” Mr. Harwood 
continued. “He grouped his facts so as 
to make it seem one-sided. That is the 
art of the orator. It is said that before 
he was district attorney he never failed to 
clear a man, and since he was elected he 
has never failed to convict. I have even 
heard it said that he hypnotized the judge 
and the jury, but I don’t call it that: I 
call it a remarkable gift of putting things 
so that his side seems inevitable.” 

“He couldn’t pull wool over the eyes 
of this jury,” said Giles Walsingham. 

“I am not so sure of that. Take the 
matter of buying the arsenic. In his 
opening plea he made a lot of that; it was 
his foundation stone. But when, no thanks 
to her attorney, he discovered that she had 
bought it for years he just dropped it; 
he never spoke of it in his summing up.” 


ELEVEN TO ONE 


97 


“That was simple enough,” remarked 
Otto Pettinger. 

“Yes, now that he has done it, but her 
lawyer would have tried to explain and 
question and surmise, keeping it all the 
time before our minds. Suppose Anson 
Simms had been her lawyer instead of the 
district attorney, how differently he would 
have summed up.” 

“How would he have done it?” asked 
Mr. Walsingham, curiously. 

Mr. Harwood had considerable gift as 
a mimic, his keen observation and detec- 
tion of what was distinctive enabling, him 
to caricature. He despised the art: it 
made him feel like a clown to exercise it; 
but to clear his wistful-eyed pupil he 
would have donned a highlander’s kilt and 
danced a hornpipe. So as he had the 


93 


ELEVEN TO ONE 


attention of all he consciously assumed 
the actor. 

“Why, you remember how her lawyer 
referred to it,” he said, rising, leaning on 
the table, and assuming the attitude of 
that attorney. Before he had spoken a 
word he had reproduced him, nervously 
taking his eyeglasses on and off, glancing 
about watery-eyed, pulling out a big 
handkerchief, pawing over a pile of papers 
and never finding the right one. “Let’s 
see,” he began, “there was something else.” 
He dived down among his papers, held 
this and then that close to his eyes, for her 
lawyer was near-sighted, put on his glasses 
to read each paper, took them off to look 
at the jury between whiles, and finally 
found what he was searching for. “Yes, 
this. The prisoner testified that she had 
bought arsenic often, this wasn’t the first 


ELEVEN TO ONE 


99 


time. Now, gentlemen of the jury, my 
learned friend took her word for that. 
He could have called a dozen witnesses to 
prove whether it was true but he didn't 
do it; he considered her word good. Then 
why doesn’t he take her word that she 
didn’t put the poison in the coffee?” 

It was almost word for word what her 
lawyer had said, and with it every move- 
ment and gesture and tone. The eleven 
jurors clapped their hands in appreciation. 

“Now,” he said, “see how Anson Simms 
would have summed up that point.” 
Instantly he was the district attorney* 
taller, erect, incisive, his thumbs in his 
waistcoat pockets, then his hands deep 
down in his trouser pockets, then his right 
hand out and a terrific thump on the table: 
it was Anson Simms to the life. 

“Gentlemen,” he said, “I have reminded 


100 


ELEVEN TO ONE 


you all along that the only evidence against 
the prisoner is circumstantial. Nobody 
saw the prisoner put arsenic in her hus- 
band’s coffee, and unless she did it there 
is no case against her. In summing up 
this case his honor will tell you that you 
are to give verdict according to the testi- 
mony. Now the only testimony that has 
been offered as to whether she put the 
poison in that cup of coffee was given by 
the defendant, and she says she did not. 
That is absolutely the only testimony 
on the question. The rest is all supposi- 
tion, surmise, guess-work. 

“The district attorney builds up his 
house of cards out of this supposition, 
surmise, guess-work. You remember how 
he displayed it in his opening plea. The 
husband died of arsenic. There was ar- 
senic in his cup of coffee. His wife handed 


ELEVEN TO ONE 


101 


the cup to him. Then came the foundation 
stone: she bought arsenic three days be- 
fore. You remember, gentlemen of the 
jury, how he thundered, ‘ What did you buy 
arsenic for V and from her own lips he got 
his answer, ‘Rats.’ And so when he tries 
to persuade you on flimsy circumstantial 
evidence, the corner-stone of which he 
himself destroys, to take the life of this 
long-suffering woman, I say to him, ‘Rats!”’ 

By this time the eleven were convulsed 
with laughter. The little mannerisms of 
the district attorney had been so amusing- 
ly caricatured and the argument was so 
much in his tone and style that the amuse- 
ment was hilarious, and was the more 
welcome because of its relief from the 
strained air of responsibility that pervaded 
the room. It was looked upon as enter- 
tainment, and Mr. Harwood as the prince 


102 


ELEVEN TO ONE 


of entertainers, but there was not a man 
of the eleven whose confidence in the 
guilt of the prisoner was not shaken. 

XII 

His eye had been upon Batson and 
Walsingham, and he was satisfied that 
he had persuaded them that they had been 
imposed upon. He saw them conferring 
together and agreeing, and he knew they 
were convinced that the district attorney 
had over-persuaded them, that as between 
the two lawyers the woman had not had a 
fair show. He counted upon their votes for 
the next ballot and he got them; but in- 
cidentally he got another. Otto Pettinger 
was a grocer’s clerk* but he felt that he 
ought to have been an attorney. Mr. 
Harwood set him to planning how he 
would have handled the facts presented 
if he had been the defendant’s counsel. 


ELEVEN TO ONE 


103 


He made himself a bore talking about it, 
but he worked up quite a case and at least 
convinced himself. The next ballot was 
eight to four. 

XIII 

The man in front of Mr. Harwood in 
the jury box was an Englishman with an 
odd name, Albion Zander. He avoided 
all conversation, but when the jury marched 
to dinner an Airdale dog that had been 
waiting came to his side, and without 
jumping or barking pressed its cheek 
against its master’s knee, while Mr. Zander, 
equally silent, laid his hand upon the 
dog’s head and kept it there all the way 
to the hotel. The dog waited outside 
while the jury was eating, and again ac- 
companied its master silently to the court- 
house. Mr. Harwood knew something 
about Airdale dogs, and was able to in- 


104 


ELEVEN TO ONE 


terest Mr. Zander. In fact he showed 
so much appreciation that the Englishman 
became confidential. He was a market- 
gardner and lived entirely alone, with the 
dog, and a pony now twenty years old 
that he had brought up from a colt. “That 
his wot cuts most,” he confided. “Hi put 
’im hin ha good stable han’ hi’m payin’ 
’em hextry, but they won’t treat ’im like 
hi would. Wy hif hi should speak cross 
to that critter ’e’d lose ’is happetite, ’e 
would. 

“Do you remember wot that crazy 
chap, the murdered man’s newy, testi- 
fied, that wen a ’oss run away and spilt 
the ’ay just before a shower ’is huncle tied 
the ’oss to ha post han’ licked ’im hall Sun- 
day hafternoon with ha black-snake wip till 
’e ’ad ’it hev’ry hinch hof ’im? ’E bought 
to ’av been murdered, ’e ’ad.” 


ELEVEN TO ONE 


105 


“He treated his wife quite as cruelly,” 
suggested Mr. Harwood. 

“Hi don’t know nuthin’ habout women, 
but hi know suthin’ habout ’osses, an’ the 
man wot habuses ha ’oss like that hought 
to be licked to death ’imself , an’ hi wouldn’t 
mind puttin’ hin some o’ the licks.” 

He got Mr. Harwood over into a corner. 
“Hi want to arst you suthin’, has man to 
man. Now wen we wotes on this werdick 
we wotes guilty or not guilty. Hif hit was 
yes or no, did she hor didn’t she, there 
wouldn’t be no way hout hof hit, but ha 
woman hisn’t much guilty to put such ha 
rotten scoundrel hout hof life. Don’t 
you believe hi could vote not guilty?” 

It was casuistry, but it meant a vote, 
and Mr. Harwood assured him he would 
be doing God’s justice. “In fact,” he said, 
“I believe I’ll vote not guilty myself.” 


106 


ELEVEN TO ONE 


He was gratified to find the next vote 
seven to five. 

XIV 

If Albion Zander avoided his fellow 
jurors, his fellow jurors avoided Ingrav 
Virchow. He was the one who smelled 
of the stable. He had dressed up for jury 
duty, and his clothes seemed inherited. 
His linen collar was too small for his flan- 
nel shirt and his necktie would not stay 
underneath. He was awkward and con- 
scious and diffident, but he was very 
social and wanted to converse all the time. 
Unfortunately his ideas were not coherent. 
He would start to say one thing, then his 
mind would fly to another subject, then a 
third topic would occur to him, and his 
sentence would seem a succession of grunts. 
Nobody else had the patience to listen to 
him, but Mr. Harwood took him in hand. 


ELEVEN TO ONE 


107 


He had dealt with children of retarded 
intellect, and he knew how to interpret, 
to encourage, to stimulate, to direct. He 
found that Mr. Virchow, an intelligent 
and well-to-do farmer, was really a keen 
observer and an original thinker. After 
conversing with him on other matters 
till he had secured his confidence and 
rescued him from the nervousness that 
had been to him what stammering is to 
many, he got him to talking about the 
case, and was surprised to find how much 
he had observed. “Seems to me her law- 
yer didn’t make all he might out of that 
crazy nephew,” he remarked. “She said 
he was in and out of the kitchen, he knew 
where the arsenic was kept in a brown 
bowl, he often used to put it on the bread- 
and-butter and take it out to the barn 
himself, and it would have been easy 


108 


ELEVEN TO ONE 


enough for him to slip a pinch into his 
uncle’s cup just before she filled it with 
coffee. He wasn’t afraid to do it, for he 
had once knocked his uncle down with a 
club, and he was apprehensive for her 
when she got back from the funeral. Why 
shouldn’t he have done it? You remem- 
ber how excited he was when he said she 
would have known all the week it was com- 
ing.” 

The stone which the builders rejected 
had become the head of the corner. This 
stumbling but eager intellect had hit upon 
the real solution. Mr. Harwood did not 
think it wise to suggest it to the rest of 
the jury for fear of arousing argument and 
antagonism, but he assured Mr. Virchow 
he agreed with him, and shook hands with 
him in agreement that hereafter both 
should vote not guilty. Years afterward 


ELEVEN TO ONE 


109 


on his deathbed the boy confessed that he 
had poisoned his uncle in just this way. 

XV 

The tide had now turned, and the feeling 
in the room grew every hour more favor- 
able to the prisoner. On the next ballot 
the three he had depended on came over, 
making the vote ten to two, and without 
special effort on his part Lorenzo Crabtree 
joined the majority, with a vote of eleven 
to one. The jury would disagree, but 
that he could have ensured without effort. 
To clear his wistful-faced pupil he must 
have the foreman’s vote, and with every 
accession to the prisoner’s side Mr. Arbo- 
gast’s chin had announced the more firmly 
that he should vote for conviction though 
he voted alone. Now came Mr. Harwood’s 
trump card and his greatest anxiety. He 
drew the foreman into a comer and asked 


110 


ELEVEN TO ONE 


nervously, “Do you think it will be safe 
for us to acquit her? The public expects 
conviction.” 

It hit the foreman just as he had hoped. 
“What do we care what the public ex- 
pects?” he asked. “We are here to do our 
duty.” 

“But such a verdict would be severely 
criticised. We shall every one of us be 
blamed.” 

“Then let us be blamed,” said the fore- 
man pugnaciously. “I am going to vote 
for acquittal.” 

It had proved so easy after all, and Mr. 
Harwood felt like saying, “Now lettest 
thou thy servant depart in peace.” It 
was the first time in his life he had thrown 
every particle of energy into an under- 
taking and it was a joy to have succeeded. 


ELEVEN TO ONE 


111 


The next vote was unanimous, and the 
jury marched into the courtroom. 

“Have you agreed upon a verdict?” 
asked the judge. 

“We have,” said Mr. Arbogast. 

“What do you find?” 

“Not guilty.” 

Mr. Harwood was looking at the prison- 
er. She had no hopes, but when the 
verdict was pronounced her face lighted 
up and positively shone as she cried, 
“Thank God!” Nobody who saw and 
heard her ever afterward questioned her 
innocence. 

XVI 

Naturally curiosity was felt as to the 
deliberations of the jury. There was no 
especial mention of Mr. Harwood, though 
Mr. Arbogast said he brought him over 
when he was afraid to vote for acquittal. 


112 


ELEVEN TO ONE 


Otto Pettinger said he supposed he was 
himself the one who finally persuaded 
Mr. Harwood and the rest of the jury. 
Albion Zander whispered to his dog, “Hi 
bet you hi know ’oo slipped Mr. Harwood 
the hidea ’ow ’e could vote not guilty and 
not lie.” 


The poisoned pen 




THE POISONED PEN 


I 

The stranger had gone all through the 
building without a word to the principal 
as to who he was or why he came. If he 
had looked more pedagogical Mr. Coe 
would have thought he was some New 
Jersey superintendent incognito, come to 
inveigle away the best Abbotsford teachers 
at an extra hundred or two a year. It 
was not till they were back in the office 
and seated for a chat that the visitor re- 
vealed himself as Mr. Joule, post-office 
inspector. 

“Had you heard that a good many 
scandalous letters had been mailed from 
thjls post-office ?” he asked. 

( 115 ) 


116 


THE POISONED PEN 


“Why, no, not a word of it,” replied 
Mr. Coe. 

“Here are a dozen that have been turned 
over to me,” said the inspector. 

Mr. Coe took them and glanced over 
them, rather hurriedly and as if it were 
contaminating even to look at them. 
They were to husbands accusing their 
wives, to wives accusing their husbands, 
to lovers accusing the other, to parents 
accusing their offspring. 

“At least none of them are to children,” 
Mr. Coe remarked, handing them back. 

“No, but these are only a few of many 
written. Not many like to confess they 
have received them.” 

“They seem to have been written by 
different people.” 

“No, the diversities are too uniform: 
the effort to vary is manifest. The kinds 


THE POISONED PEN 


117 


and shapes of paper, the forms, the ex- 
pressions differ more than they would if 
different people had written them. They 
are all the work of one person.” 

“Apparently an illiterate person; there 
are several misspelled words.” 

“Design, again. In this letter she mis- 
spells been and yet spells acknowledge and 
similarity correctly. In this she spells 
been correctly but misspells which , leaving 
out the h , which in all the others is inserted. 
That is a plain attempt to mislead.” 

“It must be some one familiar with the 
typewriter, as they are all type- written.” 

“Not so very familiar. Every one has 
letters written over because struck wrong.” 

“Another evidence of design?” 

“No, because the errors are uniform, 
of the kind a beginner would make.” 


1 18 


THE POISONED PEN 


“Do you know what type-writer they 
are written on?” 

“I know what they are not written on — 
a Smith Premier.” 

“Then none of our pupils did it, for we 
have only Smith Premiers in the building.” 

“True, and you have the only Smith 
Premiers in town. But they were writ- 
ten by somebody in this building.” 

“How do you know?” 

“Because the errors are nearly all from 
not depressing the shift-key, which is the 
error always made when a person accus- 
tomed to the Smith Premier tries to write 
on any machine with a single keyboard.” 

“How you jump at conclusions. Have 
you guessed what pupil wrote them?” 

“No pupil wrote them.” 

“How do you determine that?” 

“You have no pupils old enough for the 


THE POISONED PEN 


119 


intimate acquaintance with so many people 
these letters reveal. Their bitterness, 
their sting come from the knowledge they 
show of conditions. They were written 
by somebody familiar with social circles 
here for years.” 

“Then if it is somebody in school, and 
presumably not the janitor, who has 
tackled a good many jobs but has thus 
far escaped the type-writer, you think it 
is one of the teachers?” 

“I am sure of it.” 

“Beginning at the top, do you suspect 
me?” 

“No, Mr. Coe, there is no possibility 
of its being you.” 

“Again, why?” 

“For so many reasons it isn’t worth 
while to go into them. To ask for them 
looks like fishing for compliments.” 


120 


THE POISONED PEN 


“There are just as many reasons for 
every teacher here.” 

“No, you are wrong there, as I shall 
presently prove to you.” 

“Mr. Joule, those letters were written 
by a person of mean disposition and of a 
vile mind; I haven’t a teacher that is 
either mean or vile, much less both.” 

“It is creditable to you to think so, but 
it shows inexperience. All that is needed 
to make a mind vile is to be imaginative 
and idle. Some of the most shameful 
letters I have ever seen were written by 
women who appeared to be saints, and 
were considered so till they were exposed.” 

“A woman isn’t much without imagina- 
tion.” 

“True, and if she uses it as an author 
or a letter-writer or in charitable work 
or in making her home happy, it is a bless- 


THE POISONED PEN 


121 


ing. But if she lets it get to dreaming 
aimlessly and self-indulgently, it is apt to 
drift into the abominable in thought and 
action.” 

“You men who have to hunt up crimi- 
nals get to thinking the abnormal persons 
you deal with are types of their fellows 
instead of startling exceptions. There 
is not a teacher here I have not known at 
least two years, that I have not seen and 
talked with under conditions that reach 
life at almost every angle, and there is not 
one of them in whom I have ever caught 
a glimpse of a thought that was not clean 
and true.” 

“Very likely: that is the side they would 
show to you. A different principal might 
have developed some startlingly different 
characteristics.” 

“Those are generalities, Mr. Joule. 


122 


THE POISONED PEN 


You s&y one of my teachers wrote those 
letters. Of course you are going to try 
to prove it. I will give you every possible 
assistance. If you can convict one of my 
teachers I promise to confess that there 
is less of heaven and more of hell on earth 
than I have thus far discovered.” 

“In a way I am sorry to undeceive you, 
Mr. Coe, but I undertake to put one of 
your teachers behind prison bars within 
six weeks.” 

“If you fail, you must promise me to 
think better of women as a class, and not 
judge the field of grain by the scattering 
weed.” 

“If I fail I will promise you anything 
you like. My, I wish I had your faith 
in people. It is unsophisticated but it is 
comfortable.” 


THE POISONED PEN 


123 


II 

“Mr. Joule, you have a particular teacher 
in mind. Tell me who she is. I promise 
not to interfere but to help. If she is 
guilty I want her convicted. If she is 
innocent you do not want to be found 
mistaken.” 

“It shouldn’t be difficult. She must 
have been here three years to have her 
intimate acquaintance with people.” 

“That narrows it down to eight.” 

“She must have access to a typewriter 
at home.” 

“That points out Miss Burroughs.” 

“No. The son where Diana Gove boards 
has rented a Remington machine. He 
has been picking up little sums as news- 
gatherer for neighboring newspapers, and 
finds he can double his earnings by making 
manifold copies.” 


124 


THE POISONED PEN 


“Is she the one you suspect ?” 

“She is.” 

“You couldn’t have gone farther wrong 
in the whole school. She is as pure as her 
name. Do you know Browning?” 

“P. J.? Inspector in Northern New 
Jersey? You bet. He is the keenest in 
the business. Give him a clue and he’ll 
ferret it out every time.” 

“I mean Browning the poet.” 

“No, I’m not much on poetry. Life 
is real to me.” 

“I sometimes think there is nothing else 
so real as poetry. When I was in Rome it 
was the" ‘aspetable street’ where Pompilia 
lived I wanted to find, not the palace of 
the A^itbnines. Diana Gove makes me 
think of Pompilia, the heroine of ‘The 
Ring and the Book’, a story of a priest’s 
love for a married woman.” 


THE POISONED PEN 


125 


“Sounds as if it might be interesting. 
Maybe I’ll look it up.” 

“You wouldn’t get what you were ex- 
pecting. It is the depicting of the purest 
love on record. I was thinking of where 
a servant brings to the priest what pur- 
ports to be a letter from the wife appoint- 
ing an interview, and he says: 

“ ‘I told you there’s a picture in our church. 
Well, if a low-browed verger sidled up 
Bringing me like a blotch, on his prod’s 
point, 

A transfixed scorpion, let the reptile writhe, 
And then said, ‘See a thing that Raphael 
made — 

This venom issued from Madonna’s mouth,’ 
I should reply, ‘Rather, the soul of you 
Has issued from your body, like from like, 
By way of the ordure-comer.’ ” 


126 


THE POISONED PEN 


“Puts it strong, doesn’t he? And you 
feel that way about Miss Gove?” 

“Yes.” 

“But you are open to proof?” 

“Of course.” 

“I have the net drawn closely. Be 
ready at my signal, and within a week I 
will convince you by your own eyes.” 

Ill 

Two nights later Mr. Joule telephoned 
to Mr. Coe to meet him at once on the 
comer of Main and Gifford streets. “Miss 
Gove is alone in the house this evening,” 
he said, “and the typewriter is going. 
Wait here a few minutes and see if she does 
not mail a letter.” 

They could hear the click of the keys, 
uncertain and uneven as from a beginner’s 
touch. It was half an hour before she 
came out, and then she went to a drug- 


THE POISONED PEN 


127 


store, where she purchased a postage- 
stamp. They watched her as she ap- 
proached a letter-box, saw her attach the 
stamp, not parallel with the edges of the 
envelope but irregularly, like one unused to 
correspondence, and then put the letter 
in the box. 

As soon as she was out of sight the in- 
spector opened the box, in which at this 
time here happened to be only this single 
letter. He unsealed it. It was addressed 
to a young man about to marry, and in 
thought and language viler than Mr. Coe 
had ever heard or seen it warned her lover 
of her perfidy. Worse than all, the girl 
was one of this year’s graduates, who had 
recited to Miss Gove for four years. This 
very afternoon Mr. Coe had seen Miss 
Gove throw her arms about this girl’s neck 
and felicitate her upon her coming mar- 
riage. 


128 


THE POISONED PEN 


“Are you satisfied?” asked the inspector, 
grimly. 

“The farthest from it, but I am convinc- 
ed. What are you going to do?” 

“Arrest her at once.” 

“It is a pity to spoil our commencement 
tomorrow. Can’t you take her quietly 
to Ipswich tonight, and not let her guilt 
be known for a day or two? She has no 
more duties here and has received her pay. 
We can make an excuse that will cover 
tomorrow’s exercises.” 

“I will do that to oblige you, Mr. Coe. 
I know how you feel about it. The whole 
world seems rotten to you at this minute, 
but, after all, the vile ones are the excep- 
tions. The trouble is, they are not easily 
distinguished.” 

IV 

Commencement was a gay festivity 
for all but Mr. Coe. He walked through 


THE POISONED PEN 


129 


his part absent-mindedly, his thought on 
that creature Mr. Joule had taken to 
Ipswich. Every remembrance of her he 
could summon gave the lie to what he had 
seen. Do men gather figs of thistles? 
Seemingly all his knowledge of human 
nature was based on insecure foundation. 
If she were vile he had no criterion for 
good women. 

The next morning the young man to 
whom the letter was written came to Mr. 
Coe in considerable excitement. “I don’t 
like to bother you with it,” he said, “but 
I can’t think of any one else to go to. I 
received this letter this morning. It is 
too damnable to write of anybody, but 
when the scoundrel points to my Zoe I 
want to get my thumb on his windpipe.” 

In substance it was like the letter of two 
nights before, though the paper was dif- 


130 


THE POISONED PEN 


ferent and the mechanical structure was 
altered. “Have you the envelope?” asked 
Mr. Coe. 

“Yes, I have made a memorandum of 
every circumstance.” 

It had been mailed the night before, 
while Diana Gove was under custody at 
Ipswich. Mr. Coe’s heart gave a great 
leap: he could have choked himself for 
allowing even his own eyesight to suspect 
that girl; Caponsacchi had never waver- 
ed. “Elmer,” he said, “you are taking 
this just right, and I am proud that you 
are one of our graduates. I will help you 
detect the guilty person and I will help 
you punish him. Just keep quiet now. 
Give no sign that you have received any 
letter. The writer will think it someway 
failed to reach you and will send another. 
We will both be on the watch. I have a 


THB POISONED PEN 


131 


bit of a clue now. You are not the only 
one who has been getting this sort of 
letters.” 

Mr. Coe telephoned at once to the in- 
spector, and in the mean time went to 
Diana’s boarding-place. As he was wait- 
ing for the woman to come in he went up 
to the typewriter, which was kept in the 
front room. There were no scraps about, 
but there was a fresh sheet of carbon-paper 
apparently used but once. This he put 
into his pocket. 

“Mrs. Buttrick,” he said, “Miss Gove 
uses the typewriter a good deal, doesn’t 
she?” 

“Yes,” said the woman, “twice as much 
as Gideon.” 

“What does she write, letters?” 

“No, never. She writes her letters 
upstairs with a pen, and beautiful they 


132 


THE POISONED PEN 


are. I always like to look at them as 
she is writing, not to read them of course 
but to see her lovely penmanship and all 
so neat and nicely spaced. They might 
have been engraved.” 

“Then what does she write on the type- 
writer?” 

“I don’t know. The sheets that are 
written she keeps bottom up, and if I come 
near she always covers up what is on the 
machine.” 

“And she never lets any scraps lie 
around?” 

“No, indeed.” 

“Where does she keep what she has 
written?” 

“In a locked desk, and that locked up 
in her trunk.” 

“Is it upstairs now?” 

“Yes, she took only a small bag with 


THE POISONED PEN 


133 


her when she was called away so suddenly. 
I hope none of her friends are sick?” 

VI 

Mr. Coe met the inspector at the station 
and they compared notes. 

“There’s a good deal in what you say of 
that girl,” the inspector admitted. 
“Everything was dead against her, and 
yet I couldn’t even accuse her of the real 
thing.” 

“What happened?” 

“I waited till she had got into the house 
before I announced myself. Then I show- 
ed her my badge and told her she was 
under arrest. She was indignant rather 
than scared, and asked for what. I told 
her for mailing that letter, which I showed 
her. She asked why she should not mail 
it. I told her because it was matter that 
it was a criminal offence to mail. She 


134 


THE POISONED PEN 


did not even know what I meant, and when 
I started to show it to her, by Jove I could- 
n’t do it with those eyes looking straight 
into mine. I asked her how she happened 
to mail it, and she said Gideon But trick 
got word at supper time of an accident 
on a threshing machine two miles away, 
and started right out there. He wanted 
this letter sent, and as there were no pos- 
tage-stamps in the house asked her to 
mail it before ten o’clock.” 

“Then Gideon Buttrick must be the 
man.” 

“If she was telling the truth, at least 
an accomplice. I asked her if she knew 
to whom the letter was addressed, and she 
said she had not observed. I asked her if 
she knew it was addressed to the man Zoe 
Dutton was engaged to marry, and she 
said she did not know who that was; she 


THE POISONED PEN 


135 


had been told of the engagement only 
yesterday and the name had not been men- 
tioned. I asked her how she came to put 
the stamp on crooked, and she said she was 
ashamed of that, but in the dark one cor- 
ner had got stuck down wrong, and it clung 
so she did not dare pull it off for fear the 
mucilage would not hold.” 

“She seemed to have had an answer ready 
for every suspicious circumstance.” 

“Yes, she was almost too glib, but she 
shook my confidence and I was nearly 
ready to let her off. But I asked her what 
she was writing so much on the type- 
writer. That brought her down. She 
blushed and declined and finally positively 
refused to answer. So I took her to Ips- 
wich.” 

“And put her in jail?” 

“I took her to the jail, but I know the 


136 


THE POISONED PEN 


keeper pretty well; he is a straight fellow 
with a capital wife. I asked him to keep 
the girl in custody, but as a guest. If she 
gets away I can nab her again. But until 
I am more positive, she will be just board- 
ing with the keeper, not entered on the 
book as arrested and no publicity.” 

“Thank you for that. Did she go to 
Ipswich willingly?” 

“Not till I told her it was your request 
that everything should be kept quiet so 
so not to cloud commencement. She 
said if you wanted her to go she would 
make no resistance.” 

“Did you see her after I telephoned?” 

“No. I thought it better to follow up 
this new trail first.” 

VII 

By this time they had reached Mr. Coe’s 
office, and he took out the carbon paper 


THE POISONED PEN 


137 


and placed it against the window-pane. 
It could be read easily, and proved to be a 
batch of items that Gideon had duplicated 
for two neighboring newspapers. What 
interested them was that the failure to 
depress the shift key was frequent, as in 
the letters seized. Manifestly the in- 
spector had made too much of the change 
from the Smith Premier to the Remington ; 
the blunder would occur with any begin- 
ner, whether used to the double keyboard 
or not. 

Mr. Coe told of all he had discovered, 
with the same mystery as to what Miss 
Gove wrote on the typewriter. He was 
positive she had never used it for any 
school exercises. But the first thing was 
to find out whether Gideon was writing 
such letters. 

“Perhaps if he has been doing it he 


138 


THE POISONED PEN 


will stop it now,” suggested Mr. Coe. 

“No,” said the inspector, “it gets to be 
a self-indulgence, like drinking. When 
a man has once got the habit he can’t stop 
it. He gloats over every new victim, 
and revels in the shock the letter gives. 
If he has ever written such letters he will 
write more. We have only to keep watch. 
Do you know of a room you can get near 
the comer of Main and Gifford?” 

“Yes, Mrs. Muspratt has a room right 
on the comer that she sometimes rents.” 

“Get it for me, to do some writing in. 
You can be interested with me, and one 
of us will be at the window all the time.” 
VIII 

Gideon Buttrick did not suspect it, but 
that day he was under constant surveil- 
lance. The detective, who was unknown 
to him, did most of the actual sleuthing, 


THE POISONED PEN 


139 


but Mr. Coe kept watch and told the in- 
spector when Gideon went out of the 
house. The young man did a good deal 
of typweriting and mailed several letters 
at the post-office. Every one of them was 
at once opened and examined), but the 
first day all proved to be innoccuous. The 
two watchers became discouraged when 
the second night Gideon again went to the 
post-office and all the letters were found 
to be legitimate news items. The inspec- 
tor followed him home, however, and was 
rewarded to find him furtively circling 
about a letter-box on the outskirts of the 
village, finally dropping in a letter. Be- 
fore Gideon had gone a block the inspector 
had opened the letter and read it, and be- 
fore he had gone a second block Gideon 
had handcuffs on. The letter was again to 
Zoe’s lover, and filthier than before. 


140 


THE POISONED PEN 


The inspector took Gideon to the vil- 
lage lockup and telephoned for Mr. Coe. 
“Then we may liberate Miss Gove at 
once,” Mr. Coe said joyfully. 

“No,” said the inspector, “they may 
have collaborated.” 

“That is more impossible than her doing 
it alone,” replied Mr. Coe disgustedly. 

“But we must have some explanation of 
what she was writing,” insisted the in- 
spector. “You say it is locked up in her 
trunk?” 

“Yes, but we have no right to intrude 
upon her privacy.” 

The inspector laughed. “When we 
have evidence enough against a woman to 
arrest her, I think we need not be findcal 
about her secrets,” he said. “I must go 
to the house to notify Mrs. Buttrick of her 
son’s arrest. Come with me and occupy 


THE POISONED PEN 


141 


her while I open the trunk and the writing- 
desk.” 

Convinced that it was the most practi- 
cal if not the most delicate way to release 
Diana Mr. Coe yielded, and while the 
widow was moaning with her head hid in 
her apron, the inspector made his way up 
stairs and came down with the manuscript. 
The two men went to the inspector’s room 
and examined it. The first thing they 
observed was that it was excellent copy. 
There were no misspelled words, no errors 
from forgetting the shift key. The man- 
uscript was as mechanically perfect as her 
letters. 

But they soon became absorbed in the 
narrative, for it was evidently the begin- 
ning of a story for a magazine. Mr. Coe 
read page after page with delight, and 
even the inspector regretted when it stop- 


142 


THE POISONED PEN 


ped; for he wanted to know how it was 
coming out. It was her modesty over her 
authorship that had made Diana Gove so 
unwilling to reveal the secret. 

IX 

The two men went to Ipswich early the 
next morning, and Diana came back with 
them. She was hurt that her trunk had 
been opened and her secret revealed;, but 
Mr. Coe’s praise was so genuine that her 
indignation was sopn lost in her conviction 
that after all she had some talent. She 
was the more convinced when Mr. Coe 
sold the story for her to the Century maga- 
zine for three hundred dollars. 


Plot and counterplot 



# 


PLOT AND COUNTERPLOT 


I 

“And where do you spend vacation?" 
asked Mr. Hildreth. 

“I don’t know,” replied Miss Wyman. 

“Home first, I suppose?” continued 
the principal. 

“I have no home.” 

Mr. Hildreth feared he had encroached, 
but added, “Then you will be visiting 
friends?” 

“I have no friends who expect me.” 

It was said wearily, and Mr. Hildreth 
whose home was always hungry for him 
and who could telephone his unexpected 
arrival to a dozen families and know it 
would bring rejoicing felt a wave of pity 
( 145 ) 


146 


PLOT AND COUNTERPLOT 


surge up in his heart. He was not ob- 
servant of the personality of his teachers. 
Ask him about them and he could tell you 
all about their work: how Miss Salisbury, 
for instance, used to be so shy with her 
pupils that little affection grew up, till 
he showed her that the children were just 
as shy and were longing to love her, and 
now her’s was the happiest room in the 
building. Yet he could not tell you of 
any teacher the color of her eyes or her 
hair. He had asked Miss Wyman only 
to know her address if he wanted to send 
any word to her. But that a teacher 
should be homeless and friendless, so that 
vacation meant a time when she must 
pay board, made her a phenomenon, and 
he began to study her. Unquestionably 
a lady, quiet, low- voiced, exquisitely neat 
in attire, surely a welcome guest if she 


PLOT AND COUNTERPLOT 


147 


were known. Then he happened to re- 
member: “Why I believe you are the 
very woman I am looking for,” he said. 

“For what?” 

“Some friends of mine who have a camp 
in the Adirondacks want to take a teacher 
with them. There are two children, eight 
and ten years old, so brimming with physi- 
cal vigor that they do not pass their ex- 
aminations in school. The parents want 
the teacher to give them an hour’s work 
every morning, and during the day to be 
their companion, directing their observa- 
tion and stimulating their thought. I 
was to have gone to Ipswich to consult 
Mr. Appleton, but you are just what I 
was to tell him I wanted.” 

Miss Wyman’s eyes shone. “Could 
you really recommend me?” she asked. 

“More than that: I shall tell them they 


148 


PLOT AND COUNTERPLOT 


ought to be grateful to me all their lives.” 

“It seems like a dream I must wake 
up from.” 

“It will be an eight-weeks dream. They 
will pay you sixty dollars a month and your 
travelling expenses. You will be made 
one of the family in every way, and very 
nice people they are to know. I venture 
to say that never again will you speak of 
having nobody to visit.” 

It proved all that Mr. Hildreth promised. 
At the close of the season the family 
brought her to school in the automobile, 
and the last word was, “Remember it is 
settled you come back to us every year.” 

“Do you know what you have done for 
me?” asked Miss Wyman. 

“Given you color and vigor at any rate,” 
laughed Mr. Hildreth. 

“I hope if harm ever threatens you,” 


PLOT AND COUNTERPLOT 


149 


said Miss Wyman wistfully, “I may have 
a chance to get between.” 

“The Jorgensons are equally grateful 
to me for sending you,” he said lightly, 
“so it was a happy thought.” But in a 
month he had forgotten all about it. 

II 

One of the new teachers this term was 
not proving a success. “Miss Voit,” Mr. 
Hildreth said to her, “I don’t like the way 
you persist in following your methods 
instead of ours.” 

“Is it absolutely necessary you should 
like it?” she asked pertly. 

“It is absolutely necessary that the 
system of the school should be followed 
in every room. You disturb the prepa- 
ration your children have had; you do 
not get them ready to take up the work 


150 


PLOT AND COUNTERPLOT 


of the next room. There must be a change 
or you must go.” 

Ill 

He meant it and he could make her go. 
She did not want to go; she liked Eastboro; 
she liked the school. Besides, she had 
changed about too much already. She 
was thirty-one years old, a good age if 
one was placed where she could remain, 
but too far along to make it easy to get a 
new place, especially with the record of 
five schools in six years. She wondered 
if there was not some way she could stay 
here. Evidently she would never suit 
Mr. Hildreth; was there any way to get 
Mr. Hildreth out? 

For one so unwilling to exert herself 
in school Miss Voit had considerable energy 
and ingenuity and persistence. She began 
to look up Mr. Hildreth’s record. This 


PLOT AND COUNTERPLOT 


151 


was his third school since graduation. 
She made inquiries about the other two. 
Both had raised his salary every year and 
still regretted they had not raised it enough 
more to keep him. She visited both vil- 
lages and could not discover a serious 
criticism. 

He was thirty years old and unmarried: 
there ought to be some reason for that. 
She could not find any. In both places 
people said he was the kind of a man that 
when he went to a party looked around 
for neglected girls and tried to give them a 
good time, but whose name had never 
been associated with any particular girl. 
In fact, people laughed, he was too busy 
to fall in love. 

“That sort of a man is an easy mark 
for the right woman/’ Miss Voit mused, 
and she thought about it a good deal. 


152 


PLOT AND COUNTERPLOT 


IV 

Matilda Voit was an inquisitive person 
and she wormed out of Clarice Mason a 
secret Clarice had not expected to reveal, 
that she was to be married at Christmas. 
“Be sure you don’t let any one else know,” 
Matilda cautioned Clarice. “The pupils 
make it so difficult for a teacher when they 
hear she is engaged.” Clarice was glad 
enough to promise, and Matilda began to 
plot. 

For Clarice taught all the drawing and 
all the French, a difficult combination. 
No one else in school could teach either, 
and to fill the place on sudden notice would 
not be easy. Now it happened that in 
Bluestone where Matilda had taught last 
the teacher of drawing had been bom and 
brought up in Paris, and while she had 
not taught French she was more than 


PLOT AND COUNTERPLOT 


153 


usually competent to do so. This teacher, 
Blanche Merivale, had become engaged 
to the principal there, Mr. Pillans, but 
during vacation the engagement had 
been broken off and Mr. Pillans had re- 
signed to take a school in the west. Ma- 
tilda knew enough of Blanche to be sure 
that she was enticing and false. If she 
could get her here Blanche might become 
engaged to Mr. Hildreth and drive him 
away. It was worth trying. 

So she wrote to Blanche, telling her of 
the prospective vacancy, and inviting 
her to come on a visit so as to be here when 
the engagement and the vacancy were 
made known. This Blanche was glad 
enough to do, for in Bluestone she was 
finding herself blamed for her relations to 
Mr. Pillans. When Clarice resigned 
Blanche had already become acquainted 


154 


PLOT AND COUNTERPLOT 


in Eastboro and seemed so perfect a fit 
that she was employed without much 
inquiry or deliberation. 

V 

She did her work well. During her 
first week Mr. Hildreth satisfied himself 
that she would more than make Miss 
Mason’s place good, and he would not 
have given her another thought. But 
she was so anxious to please him that she 
consulted him frequently; she was es- 
pecially given to bringing him work of her 
pupils that seemed commendable. One 
day as he sat at his desk she came up 
behind and laid down before him a drawing 
one of her class had made. She leaned 
over him to point out its excellencies. It 
was a light and instantaneous touch but 
he was conscious of the contact of curves, 
and thrilled by it. 


PLOT AND COUNTERPLOT 


155 


He was greatly amused. In all his 
teaching he had never before reflected 
upon the form of any of his assistants: 
they might have been whittled out for all 
he observed. They were there to teach 
school, and he was there to help them do 
it effectively. There the relation ended. 
Yet here was a little woman who made him 
for the moment think how charmingly her 
chest and shoulders were rounded. It 
was so unexpected and unprecedented 
he laughed again and again. 

But the more he thought about it the 
more he realized that he had rather liked 
it, and then he began to reflect that he 
had been more than tolerant of her fre- 
quent calls upon him, and to realize that 
while he had not before recpgnized it she 
had somehow always made some contact 
with him — her hand, her shoulder, her 


156 


PLOT AND COUNTERPLOT 


knee touching his, always lightly, unob- 
trusively, of course unintentionally, but 
always somehow. 

VI 

He wondered why. She was the last 
person to purpose it. She was anything 
but bold. Her manners were exquisite, 
as became her Paris training, but he would 
have called her demure if not reticent. 
Her favorite color was dove and she seemed 
a gray little birdling, shy by nature and 
approaching closely to him only because 
he had especially inspired her confidence. 
Undoubtedly it was the same instinct 
that led little children to want to put their 
hands on teachers who were kind to them. 
He had seen a little girl take up and kiss 
the skirt of a teacher she was following. 

Nobody had ever don'e it to him before, 
and he felt interested by it as a new ex- 


PLOT AND COUNTERPLOT 


157 


perience. He was objectively amused to 
observe that he enjoyed these little touches. 
Hitherto he had been squeamish about 
personal familiarity in man or woman. 
He shrank from any body who lolled up 
against him. He loathed shaking hands 
with strangers, and where he had to submit 
to feel a grimy, sweaty palm he rubbed off 
the contagion mentally till he could reach 
a washbowl. Yet he found Blanche’s 
little manifestations of unconscious af- 
fection rather gratifying. 

Of course it must be affection. She was 
too nice in all her ways to permit an ap- 
proach except from some one with whom 
she felt congeniality and sympathy. How 
about himself? Did he like it because 
he was beginning to feel affection for her? 

That amused him again, it was so far 
from his habits and his plans. Affection 


158 


PLOT AND COUNTERPLOT 


might develop into love and love into mar- 
riage, but there was no marriage for him 
in years to come. All his eight years out 
of college he had taught chemistry. He 
had taught it pretty well. He knew prac- 
tically all that books told about, and he 
had experimented some in debatable fields, 
with promise enough to be hungry for 
more. After a year or two he was going 
to Germany for special study, in the hope 
of a college professorship, or perhaps pri- 
vate analysis. There was no place in his 
plans for mariage. 

VII 

He debated the matter a great deal, 
and presently it occurred to him that he 
was considering only the general principle, 
a man and a woman. Might it be a per- 
sonal question, a matter of Curtis Hildreth 
and Blanche Merivale? Was the fact that 


PLOT AND COUNTERPLOT 


159 


he so enjoyed contact with Miss Merivale 
a sign that she was the one woman? He 
believed with Browning faith there was one 
woman for every man, and had hoped that 
when in the distant future he met the 
affinity through whom the best in him 
would be inspired and developed he would 
recognize her and claim her. He had not 
expected that it would be her physical 
presence that would make her known: 
he had thought the embrace would be the 
result, not the cause of love. Was it pos- 
sible that this response he felt to Miss 
Merivale’s touch was a first recognition? 

The more he thought about it the more 
reasonable it seemed. He began to ex- 
periment. One day when she brought 
to his room after school a happy transla- 
tion from her French class he said, “Really 
you are doing wonderful work there," and 


160 


PLOT AND COUNTERPLOT 


he took her hand. He had never done that 
to a teacher before. He saw that to her 
it was unexpected, but she yielded as a 
child might to a superior and let her hand 
lie in his grasp. It was cool and soft and 
somehow comfortable: he held it a minute 
or two, still talking, but thinking about the 
hand that lay there, unresponsive but 
unresisting. He began to believe she was 
the woman. 

His plans began to crumble. After all, 
why go to Germany? He was enjoying 
his high school work, his salary and savings 
warranted him in marrying; why drop the 
meat in his mouth for the image in the 
water? Of the two great blessings of life 
he was not likely ever to lack work, and 
if this were his chance for love he would 
be blind to miss it. 

One afternoon, again after school, he 


PLOT AND COUNTERPLOT 


161 


took her hand again, and when she let him 
hold it and press it he drew her to him, 
put his arm around her, and kissed her. 
At that instant he looked up to see the 
janitor disappearing down the hall. There 
was no longer any chance to hesitate. 
“John,” he called, “come back a minute.” 

The janitor appeared, still trying to 
conceal a grin. 

“John,” said Mr. Hildreth, still keeping 
his ann about Miss Merivale, “we shall 
have to anticipate with you an announce- 
ment we were about to make: we are to 
be married in June.” 

VIII 

Miss Wyman thought her dislike for 
Miss Voit was instinctive. Perhaps it was ; 
perhaps it was because the first day of 
the term when the other teachers were 
lauding Mr. Hildreth rather warmly Miss 


162 


PLOT AND COUNTERPLOT 


Voit’s nostrils showed an incredulous in- 
flation. Whatever the cause, the dislike 
grew. Without necessity of assigning a 
reason it extended to Miss Merivale. Miss 
Wyman needed no hint to observe the new 
teacher’s beguilement of Mr. Hildreth, 
and cried over her helplessness to reveal 
to the big, blind principal how he was being 
tricked. As matters became more and 
more serious she went to Bluestone, nom- 
inally applying for a place that happened 
to be vacant there, and making it a pre- 
text for interviewing every member of the 
board. 

IX 

It was natural for her to mention that 
Miss Merivale was now at Eastboro. She 
saw that the town was glad to be rid of 
her but got no satisfactory information 
till she reached the last member, a woman 


PLOT AND COUNTERPLOT 


163 


physician, who took to her at once and was 
glad to talk. 

“Blanche Merivale is the falsest viper 
I ever knew,” she declared. “She is in- 
satiable in her attempts to inveigle. Be- 
fore she became engaged to Mr. Pillans 
she concentrated on him but as soon as 
she had nabbed him she went on casting 
her wiles over other men. Even my 
nephew Claude, nineteen years old, a sopho- 
more, came home one night raving about 
her. It was undoubtedly her falseness 
that made Mr. Pillans break the engage- 
ment, though there were plenty of other 
reasons. Some of them may be serious. 
He said to me the night he went away, 
‘Dr. Kimberly, if that woman seems likely 
to ensnare another decent man, let me 
know. I don’t want to harm her, but I 
want to save him.’ ” 


164 


PLOT AND COUNTERPLOT 


“Where did Mr. Pillans go?” 

“To Amaranth, Wisconsin. He is mak- 
ing a great success there. Among other 
things he has become a noted lecturer. 
He came east to appear before the histori- 
cal society at Ipswich tonight. He will 
be there two or three days, and we hope 
to see him here.” 

X 

When Miss Wyman got back to school 
the next morning she found Mr. Hildreth 
in great perplexity. “This is the most 
annoying thing, Miss Wyman,” he said, 
looking over five or six telegrams. “Prof- 
fessor Killigrew, who is our speaker tonight 
has pneumonia in a New York hospital, 
and I can’t get hold of anybody to take 
his place. We have done so well with 
our lecture course that I simply cannot 
put on any ordinary local man.” 


PLOT AND COUNTERPLOT 


165 


“There is a Mr. Pillans who lectured 
last night on the Ipswich course. He 
is from Wisconsin, but I understand he 
came east expressly for that appointment. 
Very likely you can get him.” 

In half an hour the engagement had 
been made. Mr. Hildreth’s telephoning 
to Ipswich had made him so sure Mr. 
Pillans would prove satisfactory that he 
did not announce the change of speakers, 
and only Miss Wyman knew there was to 
be a substitution. 

XI 

Mr. Hildreth was chairman of the lecture 
committee, and was accustomed to gather 
his teachers in the anteroom and introduce 
the speaker to them: he liked to have 
them see something of distinguished men. 
On this evening they had assembled when 
Mr. Pillans entered with Mr. Hildreth. 


166 


PLOT AND COUNTERPLOT 


Everyone else was looking at the speaker 
of the evening, but Miss Wyman was 
looking at Blanche Merivale, who had 
come in last of the teachers, indifferent. 
The instant she saw Mr. Pillans she with- 
drew without being observed. Her ab- 
sence was not commented on, but the next 
morning it was discovered that she had 
gone away by the night train, taking all 
her belongings with her. She had bought 
a ticket for New York, but she sent no 
word from there and neither Eastboro 
nor Mr. Hildreth ever heard from her again. 
What she expected Mr. Pillans to tell Mr. 
Hildreth will never be known, for as a 
matter of fact her name was not mentioned. 


The face that followed 









THE FACE THAT FOLLOWED 


I 

“No, Miss Welcher, it is not a question 
of technique or of detail. You are con- 
stitutionally unfit for teaching. You do 
not love your work, you do not love your 
children. Your mind is always on your 
own comfort, your own ease, your own 
privileges. You have not the spirit of a 
teacher and you can never acquire it. 
You are a defective connection in the 
machinery of this school and you must go.” 

It was final. She new that. Mr. 
Jost never wasted words, or said more 
than he meant. She had kept her place 
an extra year once by giving part of her 
salary to the principal, but nobody would 
dream of making such an offer to Mr. 

( 169 ) 


170 THE FACE THAT FOLLOWED 

Jost. He was so upright he leaned over 
backward. He took pride in keeping all 
his transactions transparent. He was se- 
vere sometimes, but he was never under- 
handed or unjust. 

He was not unjust here. It was true 
that she did not love her work or her chil- 
dren. If there were any other way to earn 
a living she would never enter a schoolroom 
again. But there was nothing else she 
could do, unless perhaps to wash dishes. 
She did not believe she could do that very 
well. At any rate it would be work, and 
work she hated. When she looked about 
her and saw women rolling in money from 
their fathers or their husbands while she 
had to toil for every penny, it made her 
wish the whole world had one pair of eyes 
that she might scratch them out. 

Well, if she could not stay in Spermaceti 


THE PACE THAT FOLLOWED 171 


she must find a place somewhere else again. 
She was fairly goodlooking and knew how 
to make herself entertaining in conversa- 
tion, so if she got hold of a susceptible 
member of a board of education she could 
probably secure another contract for a 
year. Easter vacation began next day, 
and she took the night train for New York. 
II 

She breakfasted at the station, and was 
listening indifferently to the conversation 
of two men at the next table. 

“What are you going to do about Ge- 
genbauer, Judge?” one of them asked. 

“I haven’t made up my mind.” 

“He’s guilty, of course?” 

“Yes the jury couldn’t bring in any 
other verdict. I’ve got to sentence him. 
But for how long? I look upon these 
people who have committed crimes as 


172 THE PACE THAT POLLOWED 

temporary wrecks. The question is, can 
they be repaired? If I think there is a 
chance for a man to start again and make 
good I give him a short term. If he seems 
to me hopeless I shut him up for as long 
as I can.” 

“And you don’t think Gegenbauer is 
hopeless?” 

‘T haven’t determined. I once had a 
case a good deal worse than his and I let 
the man off, with many misgivings. Yet 
I saw by the Globe last night that he had 
been elected president of the Lake shore 
schoolmasters club, quite an honorable 
place, showing that he is well regarded 
by his fellow teachers. Twenty years ago 
I came near sending him to prison, and I 
have wondered since whether I ought 
not to have done it. Yet apparently he 
•has made good and I have saved a man.” 


THE FACE THAT FOLLOWED 173 


Miss Welcher was listening eagerly now. 
Mr. Jost was the new president of that 
schoolmasters club. There might be a 
chance for her yet. 

“What were the circumstances?” 

“It happened before I was appointed 
to the bench, when I was president of the 
board of education in Moline, Idaho, and 
he was principal. There was an explosion 
in the chemical laboratory one day that 
nearly cost a girl her life. I was not satis- 
fied with a surface investigation, and dis- 
covered it occurred from using inferior 
chemicals, commercial stuff sold by the 
barrel instead of the carefully refined 
material sold by the ounce. The principal 
used to buy everything for the school, and 
he had charged the full chemical price. 
That set me to searching and I found he 
had been doing that sort of work with 


174 THE FACE THAT FOLLOWED 

everything we used, buying the cheapest 
and getting pay for the best, even forging 
bills and receipts. I got the proof together 
and confronted him with it. He owned 
up and begged me to give him a chance 
to make good. I finally yielded, and he 
resigned and went east.” 

“How did you come to engage such a 
man?" 

“Our past two or three principals had 
been namby-pamby fellows who had no 
discipline and we wanted somebody who 
could run the school. He had no manners, 
and, as it turned out, no morals, but he 
had lots of rude force and he could control." 

“You were pretty easy with him." 

“For a reason that as it turned out was 
the worst thing against him. He was sup- 
posed to be engaged to one of his teachers, 
an orphan who had struggled hard to be- 


THE FACB THAT FOLLOWED 175 


come self-supporting and toward whom 
every one felt kindly. That hound never 
so much as wrote to her after he disappear- 
ed. She pined away during vacation, 
and when September came she resigned, 
bought a ticket for Europe, and dropped 
off the vessel somewhere out at sea; those 
who knew said in order that there should 
be no postmortem over her body.” 

“I should think you would have arrested 
him then.” 

“Unfortunately I had given him my 
word that all that had happened should 
be a secret between us two; that he should 
start with a clean slate.” 

“He seems to have kept it clean.” 

“Apparently. I may have done the 
wise thing in giving him a show. But I 
shouldn’t have dreamed of letting him off 


176 THE FACE THAT FOLLOWED 

if I had known what his real relation was 
to Roxana Lome.” 

The men finished their meal and went 
away. Vinnie Welch er examined her 
pocketbook. She had most of her two 
months pay. She went to the ticket- 
office. “What is the fare to Moline, 
Idaho ? ’ ’ she asked. She had money enough 
for the trip and she bought a ticket. 

Ill 

On the Monday after school reopened 
she walked into Mr. Jost’s office. “I spent 
vacation in Moline, Idaho,” she said. 

Mr. Jost sank back in his chair, looking 
as if he had seen a ghost. 

“I secured copies of the bills you handed 
in to the board receipted.” 

He stared at her as if spellbound. 

“I got all the particulars in regard to 
the death of Roxana Lome.” 


THE FACE THAT FOLLOWED 177 


He still gazed speechless. 

“Do I go or stay?” 

He gasped, “You stay.” 

“I thought so,” she said with an impu- 
dent smile, and walked out triumphant. 
IV 

When his consternation began to clear 
enough for reflection his first thought was 
that it was so unjust. All this happened 
twenty years ago and ought to be out- 
lawed. Just before he came away from 
Moline and before anybody but Judge 
Countryman knew he was not to remain 
he ordered of the local tailor a suit of clothes 
and an overcoat. He had never paid for 
them; he had never expected to pay for 
them; but after six years the tailor could 
not collect for them : the debt was outlawed. 
Why was there not a statute of limitations 
against ill-repute? As he understood it 


1 78 THE FACE THAT FOLLOWED 

the criminal charge against him was out- 
lawed. Why should not the moral re- 
flection upon him be outlawed just as much ? 
What right had anybody to bring it up 
against him after twenty years? And 
yet if Vinnie Welcher told what she knew 
he could never teach school again. It 
wasn’t fair. 

V 

It was especially unfair because his mo- 
rality was as acquired as his manners. He 
had never had a hint who his parents were. 
His earliest recollections were of running 
around the wharves in St. Louis, pilfering 
his meals and sleeping under a bridge, 
in a doorway, wherever he could crouch 
without being kicked out. To steal and 
lie was his only way to live. He had to 
avoid being caught but he never thought 
of guilt. In fact he knew of no guilt ex- 


THE FACE THAT FOLLOWED 179 


cept being found out and punished. He 
was a little animal that had to live and 
could live no other way. 

When the attendance officer got hold 
of him and put him into an institution 
conditions did not change greatly. The 
asylum was run on the spy system, and 
still the only guilt was getting caught. 
The first real moral principle pounded into 
him was that you must not squeal on the 
other fellows. He did it, and when he got 
what was coming to him from the other 
boys he was less impressed by his punish- 
ment than by the discovery that it wasn’t 
the thing for boys to tell on one another. 
Once learned he adhered to it : not another 
boy in the place would endure more rather 
than betray his fellows. But he was 
seven years old when he discovered it. 
Most of the others had known it so long 


180 THE FACE THAT FOLLOWED 

they seemed to have been born with it as 
as instinct. 

In manners he was ten years old before 
he observed that when talking to a lady 
a boy was expected to take off his cap, 
but after he discovered it he never failed 
to do it. He was twenty years old before 
he even dreamed that gentlemen took a 
bath every morning, but when he found 
it was a distinctive custom he never failed 
to follow it, though he broke the ice in a 
pitcher to douse the water over himself. 
And it was so with morals. What other 
boys knew from the cradle he picked up 
in crumbs all through the years. 

VI 

For whoever his parents were he in- 
herited from them a ceaseless social ambi- 
tion. He proved a remarkably keen pupil, 
learning to read and write and calculate 


THE FACE THAT FOLLOWED 181 


with an appetite and a readiness that as- 
tonished his teachers. Disagreeable as 
he was, they could not help encouraging 
‘him, he got chances to earn money, and 
he pushed on into and through college. 
He was still unscrupulous in everything 
of which he had not learned the ethics, 
and was continually dismaying those who 
would otherwise have befriended him. 
But his eagerness and his industry were so 
great, and his effort so manifest to keep 
rising that those who disliked him and 
disapproved of him could not help admir- 
ing his determination. 

When he came to Moline to teach he was 
still amazingly crude. It did not seem to 
him at all out of the way to manipulate 
the bills for supplies so as to make two or 
three hundred dollars a year out of them. 
He needed the money to pay his college 


182 THE FACE THAT FOLLOWED 


debts, and he took it as he used to steal a 
banana when the man was not looking. 
Even forging the receipts seemed a mere 
matter of detail. It astonished him to 
see how Judge Countryman looked upon 
it. He never thereafter indulged in any 
kind of graft, he avoided any sort of con- 
cealment which could have covered up 
graft; but it was acquired morality, as 
much as it was acquired manners to walk 
along with a lady when he met her and 
wanted to speak to her instead of stopping 
her. 

VII 

As to Roxana Lome, he had always in- 
dulged his licentiousness like his other 
appetites. There had been nothing about 
him to attract the finer type of women, 
and those who had tolerated him had 
given him contempt for the sex. They 


THE FACE THAT FOLLOWED 183 


wanted to marry him, and set traps for 
him. He considered it clever to eat the bait 
without getting caught in the trap. He 
had looked upon Roxana as a trap-layer 
and thought it a sharp trick after getting 
all he desired from her to disappear leaving 
no trace, as he had from the tailor. When 
she did not protest or complain, but finding 
herself not wanted simply obliterated her- 
self, taking pains at the last to protect him 
by making it impossible to prove he had 
wronged her, slipping out of the march 
like a wounded animal to die alone and 
forgotten, he saw there were possibilities 
in women he had never dreamed of. She 
came back into his thoughts more and 
more. He grew not merely to appreciate 
her love but to idealize it. He mourned 
for her and for the child that might have 
been his, repenting not for her suffering 


184 THE FACE THAT FOLLOWED 

but because she would have been so val- 
uable an element in his life. 

He began to look for good women, and 
to see the good in them so manifestly and 
humbly and responsively that they re- 
ceived him and helped him and taught 
him. His manners had grown formally 
chivalrous : at forty-five the wharf-rat 
boy was pointed to as a gentleman of the 
old school. Yet now he must be ostra- 
cised for what the man ignorant of women 
had done twenty years ago. It was most 
unjust. That was the whole plot of Les 
Miserables. Jean Valjean really was a 
thief: when he became M. Madelaine 
what right had Javert to punish him for 
the sins of an earlier nature from which 
he had wholly emerged? 


THE FACE THAT FOLLOWED 185 


VIII 

Mr. Jost never repented. It did not 
occur to him to pay the Moline tailor his 
ninety dollars. The tailor had trusted 
the man Mr. Jost was then — an error of 
judgment for which he was rightfully pun- 
ished. A tailor could trust him now and 
be sure of his pay, but what had that to do 
with twenty years ago? Mr. Jost had 
never felt much interest in religion, but 
the instruction in the asylum had been 
orthodox, he had a belief in future punish- 
ment, and in Moline times he never doubted 
that if he died he would go straight to hell. 
But as the years passed, his temptations 
were fewer and less urging, he accumu- 
lated some property and felt in easy cir- 
cumstances, life grew comfortable for him. 
he learned every year more and more of 
the morals and the courtesies, and he 


186 THE FACE THAT FOLLOWED 

found them better and better worth fol- 
lowing. 

For instance, he had grown up astonish- 
ingly profane. Even so late as when he 
began teaching and had to conceal it, he 
flew into a rage if he dropped a collar 
button, and had accumulated such a vo- 
cabulary of profanity that he thought it 
was ingrained in his nature. Yet when 
association with people of refinement 
taught him how vulgar it was to give way 
to temper and swear, he dropped it all 
with a suddenness and completeness that 
surprised as well as gratified him. He had 
only to follow the fixed rule formally to 
apologize to himself every time he uttered 
an oath and in a month the habit was 
gone: in fact profanity in others came to 
fill him with disapproval, largely surprise 
that any one could be so foolish. 


THE FACE THAT FOLLOWED 187 


It was much the same with vile thoughts. 
He had grown up in surroundings reeking 
with filth and he had supposed himself so 
corrupt that he was hopeless. Once he 
heard a sermon on “Create within me a 
clean heart”, and he smiled sardonically 
as he thought how far that possibility was 
beyond him. Yet as he mingled with good 
women and gained their sympathy and 
confidence the old associations lost their 
interest for him, seemed vulgar, unworthy, 
loathsome. By the time he had come to 
Spermaceti he was aggressively immacu- 
late in speech and in thought: he really 
shrank from any suggestion of impropri- 
ety. 

In short he had grown to consider him- 
self a man of character. He was looked 
up to with respect and he had learned to 
respect himself. Continued right living 


188 THE FACE THAT FOLLOWED 

produces a momentum that makes wrong 
living seem impossible and foreign. For 
some years Mr. Jost had felt himself borne 
upon this current, sweeping through life 
with assured credit; not unlikely to fare 
well in the next world, though of this he 
thought as little as possible. 

Why repent of the earlier less creditable 
years? The wonder was not that he was 
so lacking in everything then, but that he 
had since acquired so much. When a 
twinge caught him as he discovered his 
ignorance in something he had done, he 
had a way of humming to himself a sort 
of hybrid Mother Goose: 

Bah, bah, mouton noir, 

Avez-vous de laine ? 

It was his w r ay of confessing to himself 
how densely ignorant he started, and of 


THE FACE THAT FOLLOWED 189 


exonerating himself for not having at that 
time known better. 

IX 

And yet this repute of the man of char- 
acter, of the gentleman of the old school 
that he had become, must be tom off, like 
a domino at an unmasking, and he be 
pointed to as a hypocrite, at heart a thief 
and a profligate. All because Vinnie 
Welcher had somehow discovered his 
secret. He was not afraid of her revealing 
it so long as he protected her. She had a 
low, selfish cunning that would make her 
recognize that the value of her secret lay 
in her keeping it entirely to herself. He 
was her meal ticket. She could stay in 
school only through him, and she knew he 
would keep her there only so long as the 
secret was her’s and her’s only. 

He must keep her, but it would not be 


190 TKE FACE THAT FOLLOWED 

easy. The time would come when he 
would have to make it a personal matter. 
The board would wonder why he was so 
interested in her, perhaps would suspect a 
scandal. Before two years at the most 
had passed it would become an issue, and 
she might cost him his place. If he went 
elsewhere he would have to take her with 
him. He might even have to marry her. 
All his life she would hang about his neck 
and make it hard for him to float, not to 
say swim. 

She was distressingly healthy. She 
never missed a day from school, she ate 
only her three regular meals, she went to 
bed early, she slept well, she avoided 
draughts and wet feet: as the other teach- 
ers said, “She knew how to take care of 
herself/’ She would outlive him and he 
could never shake her off. 


THE FACE THAT FOLLOWED 191 


Was there any way of ridding himself 
of her? He thought of compassing her 
death by poison or otherwise, but only 
generally and distantly, with the recogni- 
tion that it was impracticable. Better run 
the risk of exposure of the crimes of twenty 
years ago than incur new and greater 
crimes today. No, he must endure her. 

He patted himself on the back that he 
reached this decision so readily and posi- 
tively. He must be really a pretty good 
man that he did not even contemplate using 
foul means. Once he would have had no 
scruples, but now he could not even imagine 
himself sending her poisoned candy, for 
instance. He had been much impressed 
by Webster’s peroration in the murder 
trial: “The secret was his own and it was 
safe. Ah, gentlemen, that was a dreadful 
mistake!” It was a dreadful mistake to 


192 THE FACE THAT FOLLOWED 

have a secret. His secrets of twenty years 
ago bid fair to cost him all the twenty years 
had done for him. There should be no 
new and worse ones added. 

X 

He staid at the schoolhouse till late, and 
he found it hard to adjust himself to walk- 
ing home. He had become quite a public 
character in Spermaceti. Everybody 
knew him and bowed to him, and he had a 
smile and usually a word for everybody. 
Looked at askant all his earlier years, he 
appreciated it the more that here he was 
held in esteem, and he was glad to be gra- 
cious. He had heard that some stranger 
spoke of his smile as benignant. He liked 
that word* and he tried to live up to it. 
At a Sunday school picnic a speaker had 
said that as you stand on the stern of a 
steamer and see a white wake following it 


THE FACE THAT FOLLOWED 193 


in the water, so a good man’s life should 
be followed by the happier faces always 
to be seen in his footsteps. He tried to 
greet everybody so that smiles should 
follow him. He was contented himself 
and did his best to make others so. He 
wished well to all mankind, and felt him- 
self to be an uplifting force in the commu- 
nity. 

And now comes this woman with the 
tale of the dead self on which he had risen 
to better things, and hereafter all this 
benignity which had been real must be 
assumed, affected, played as a part. He 
was at heart that very rare man, a genuine 
philanthropist, yet the thought he might 
have given to the happiness of others must 
now be concentrated on protecting him- 
self from his former self. It was most 
unjust. 


194 THE FACE THAT FOLLOWED 


XI 

He lived a little out of the village, at the 
foot of a steep hill, and when he went up 
to his room after supper he saw Vinnie 
Welcher walking down this road, carrying 
hepaticas and dog-tooth violets she had 
picked, and looking thoroughly contented 
with herself and the world. Manifestly 
after she had left him she had taken a long 
walk to the Garrison woods, and celebrated 
her achievement of support for the rest 
of her life by gathering these flowers. How 
happy and healthy she looked. Yes, she 
would outlive him. It was hopeless. 

Just then he glanced further up the hill 
and saw an automobile coming down, 
manifestly out of control. The hill was a 
steep road, turning and rocky: no local 
driver ever attempted it. This must be 


THE FACE THAT FOLLOWED 195 


some stranger who had struck it by acci- 
dent and lost control of his car. 

As soon as Mr. Jost realized this he saw 
that Vinnie Welcher was in great danger, 
yet wholly unconscious of it, as the driver 
was too scared even to toot his horn. Mr. 
Jost’s first instinct was of course to warn 
her; he could call to her from his window: 
there was even time to run down stairs 
and pull her to safety. But he caught 
himself abruptly. Not if he knew himself, 
and he thought he did. It would not be 
a man saving a woman: it would be a 
victim saving a blackmailer, whom with 
all his heart he wished dead and refrained 
from killing only because of the conse- 
quences. Now her death was likely to be 
accomplished without his intervention, 
and he anxiously watched the big touring 
car as it swayed and pitched down the hill. 


196 THE FACE THAT FOLLOWED 

If only it would keep the road, if only she 
would keep walking there, if only nobody 
would see and warn her. All his desires 
were accomplished. The machine struck 
her square in the back, and ran over her 
with such violence that it was itself over- 
turned. 

Had it killed her? Mr. Jost ran down 
to make sure. Her mangled body lay 
beside the road. He lifted it. The flesh 
still quivered, the eyes were still open, 
but the heart had stopped beating : she was 
certainly and finally dead. His secret 
was dead with her. He could live once 
more his upright, honored life, with no 
fear of exposure. He felt some shock, 
some pity, some remorse, but when he saw 
that she would never breathe again his 
predominant feeling was of relief. He 
even felt a sort of recognition of the Provi- 


THE FACE THAT FOLLOWED 197 


dence he had heard the preachers talk 
about. He had never prayed, but his 
thankfulness was pretty nearly a silent 
devotion. 

By the time others got there he mani- 
fested all the grief and shock the occasion 
required, he helped arrange for her funeral, 
he sent profuse flowers, he wrote a feeling 
obituary. “He is really a man of deeper 
feeling than we had thought,” the village 
remarked. 

XII 

As he had lifted her the face had con- 
fronted him and the open eyes as he re- 
called them seemed to reproach him; to 
say, “You might have saved me; you have 
murdered me.” It was absurd, of course. 
She was killed instantly, she probably 
never knew what struck her, she could not 
by any possibility have guessed that he 


198 THE FACE THAT FOLLOWED 

might have rescued her, yet every time 
that face came back the eyes grew more 
accusing. 

He tried to escape them. He sat up late, 
reading, writing, looking at pictures, 
playing the victrola, but the moment his 
heavy lids closed he saw her face. Present- 
ly it did not wait for darkness. It stared 
at him in the daylight, appeared as he 
turned a comer, reproached him out of 
an open closet; he hardly dared turn his 
head for fear he should see it. 

XIII 

Had he been wrong to permit her death ? 
He could not make it seem so. He had 
always defended Shy lock, declaring that 
Portia’s pettifogging and chicanery only 
showed what would happen to the world 
if places of authority were filled by women, 
substituting personal prejudices for justice. 


THE PACE THAT FOLLOWED 199 


“Hates any man the thing he would not 
kill?” 

“What, would’st thou have a serpent sting 
thee twice?” 

The poor jew was only protecting him- 
self, and he would have done so success- 
fully except for the interference of an at- 
torney who was not a lawyer. So in this 
case Mr. Jost had protected himself, and 
had done it passively. He had been wholly 
free from complicity and had simply re- 
frained from interfering with justice that 
overcame a blackmailer. The world was 
the better for being rid of her, and for still 
having him, a righteous influence for the 
good and happiness of the community. 

XIV 

He wished he knew what Judge Country- 
man would think about it. Just as when 


200 THE FACE THAT FOLLOWED 

the boys mauled him for tattling he was 
less impressed by the pain than by the 
surprise that there was any objection to 
tale-telling, so when Judge Countryman 
had scored him so bitterly he had. thought 
less of the shame than of the conviction 
that this graft really must be a blame- 
worthy thing if Judge Countryman felt 
so strongly about it. He had often wished 
he knew what Judge Countryman would 
think of this or that conduct, and not 
seldom felt, “I believe if Judge Country- 
man could see me now, he would consider 
me considerable of a man.” What would 
the judge think of hjs permitting death 
to come to the girl, when you were not in 
the least responsible for it, her life was of 
no use to herself or anyone else, and your 
live was thereby saved in all its usefulness 
to yourself and the world? It wasn’t as 


THE FACE THAT FOLLOWED 201 


though if he had intervened she would have 
fallen on his neck and declared her saviour’s 
secret should be sacred. O no, she wasn’t 
that kind. If he had rescued her the rest 
of his life would have been a living death. 
Who could ask him to make such a sacri- 
fice? 

And yet the more he thought about it 
he had to admit that popular prejudice 
was against Shylock; it might hold his not 
saving Miss Welcher blameworthy. He 
wished he had had time to consider it 
before he had to decide whether to rescue 
her. He half believed Judge Countryman 
would say it was his duty to save a life 
even if it were a life that imperilled his. 
If it were to do over, maybe he would have 
opened the window and called to her: 
not so very loud, but so as to say he had 
warned her. 


202 THE FACE THAT FOLLOWED 


XV 

He had expected that the sight of her 
death and the excitement of the tragedy 
would keep him from sleeping for a few 
nights, but a week, a fortnight, a month 
passed,, and still the moment he extinguish- 
ed the light her face appeared before him, 
her scream rang through his ears, her eyes 
gazed into his with a new meaning as if 
to say, “You thought you had escaped me. 
Far from it: always now my face will fol- 
low you, follow you, follow you.” He 
recognized that he was in danger; unless 
he could sleep he would lose his reason. 

Her face began to appear continually 
before him. More than once he had 
paused in the class and shuddered as he 
saw her denouncing eyes mocking him 
from the back of the room. 

By this time others had begun to look 


THE FACE THAT FOLLOWED 


203 


at him askant. Suspicions arose. He 
would not have been so disturbed by the 
death of a teacher of whom he had not 
approved unless he had been somehow 
concerned in it. To get to her so soon 
he must have been close by. Why had 
he not warned her? If he let her be run 
over why was he so anxious for her death? 
XVI 

It is astonishing how surmises will mul- 
tiply, and how many hypotheses the com- 
bined imaginations of a village will hit 
upon. But there came more than hypothe- 
sis. Just as Mr. Jost began to realize that 
he must give up work and go off some- 
where in search of sleep, Miss Welcher’s 
nearest relative, an aunt to whom her 
things had been sent, forwarded to the 
president of the board a paper she had 
found sealed in her niece’s handwriting, 


204 THE FACE THAT FOLLOWED 

giving in minute detail all her discoveries 
at Moline. The president received it on 
Saturday morning, and immediately tel- 
ephoned the members of the board to 
come together that evening. All appeared 
except Dr. Symington, who did not arrive 
till just as they were about to adjourn. 
He listened in silence to the president’s 
reading of the statement, and he was asked 
if he concurred in the vote of the board 
that the principalship should be declared 
vacant. 

“It is vacant,” he said. “His landlady 
summoned me last evening, as he had 
become violent, and I took him by the 
night train to the asylum at Ogdensburg. 
The superintendent put him among the 
incurables.” 


Stories about Schools 

By C. W. BARDEEN 
ONE DOLLAR PER VOLUME 
Single Stories 

Roderick Hume. The Story of a New 
York Teacher. 

Commissioner Hume. A Story of New 
York Schools. 

Volumes of Short Stories 

A Single Session, The Vanished Check, 
Eleven to One, The Poisoned Pen, Plot and 
Counterplot, The Face that Followed 

Fifty-five Years Old, Miss Fothergill’s 
Protest, The New Vice-Principal, The 
Alpha Upsilon Society, The Haunted 
Schoolhouse, Miss Trumbull’s Triumph 
(205) 


206 


STORIES ABOUT SCHOOLS 


Geraldine’s Saints, Around the World, 
The Greenleaf Mystery, The President Ex- 
aggerated, A Hot-house Flower, The Stolen 
Regents Paper 

John Brody’s Astral Body, The Teacher- 
ette, Her Mother’s Daughter, In the Clouds 
When Greek meets Greek, Bumptious Bill 

Ruby Floyd’s Temptation, The Tenth 
Commandment, The Hold-Up, A Merry 
Soul, A Matter of Marking, Three Month’s 
Notice 

The Black Hand, Tied and untied, Up- 
per 12, A Lost Identity, A Sensitive Plant, 
By the Campfire 

The Cloak Room Thief, Miss Hoyt, The 
Verbs in Mi, Miss Ripley’s Point of View, 
The Bogus Twenties, The Widow’s Might, 
Commencement Night, Hopelessly Heart- 
less 

The False Entry, Debora’s Defeat, The 
Lightning Calculator, The Dunlap Hat, 
On the Make 

The Girl from Girton, Call no man Hap- 
py, The Bully Bewildered, A Fight to 


STORIES ABOUT SCHOOLS 


207 


Finish, A Story without Names, The Man 
who Couldn’t 

The Shattered Halo, Colonel Bob’s Ex- 
periment, Sandy Sam, The Block Y, A 
Strike and a Spare, The Rockingham 
Rebellion, Downright David, The Spirit 
Summons 

The Stolen Payroll, The Village Tyrant, 
The Little Green Snake, Perchance to 
Dream, Jean Harmon, Brothers Both, 
In the New York Central Station 

The Trial Balance, The Ossahinta Scim- 
itar, The Trouser-Pocket Thief, Put off at 
Buffalo, Tried and Found Wanting, The 
Cashier’s Prophecy 

The Woman Trustee, Without Creden- 
tials, Jot the Janitor, A Masterful Man, 
On a Pedestal, Miss Dusinberrie’s Down- 
fall 

The Yellow Streak, Under Arrest, The 
January Regents, Miss Queroot, How he 
became Professor Piper, A Hireling, The 
Set of Tennyson 


208 


STORIES ABOUT SCHOOLS 


Tom and Tom Tit, On a Tension, Bread 
upon the Waters, A Life for a Life, A Res- 
cue, The Tell-tale Photograph 











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